Destiny Denied
by Merox
Summary: Imaginations are wonderful things, but what if you found out that your favorite fictional world, did in fact exist? What if they needed your help? COMPLETE
1. Prologue

**A/N: **I got the idea for this one January day, while watching an Alan Rickman marathon with a friend. We were watching 'Galaxy Quest' and all I could think about, was "How cool would it be if that happened with the Potterverse?" And voila. Many many thanks to Lori for the beta-ing, and Danielle and Cathy for the excellent feedback and inspiration.

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**Destiny Denied  
Prologue  
by Merox**

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"So how many times have you read book five, now, Cathy?" Lenore asked. Her strawberry blonde pigtailed little sister looked up over the top of her large blue and silver book. She looked back down to her pages and read a few more lines before replying. 

"Eight," she said simply. "I had to take a break from fan fiction," and her green eyes went back to roaming the pages. Her eyes had been Cathy's favorite feature. Especially after becoming a Harry Potter fan. Granted, that had been many years ago, but the initial charm and excitement that inevitably leads to obsession had not worn off in those long seven years. It had been one year since Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had been released.

It had been five books, seven years and many pairs of reading glasses since the Lector sisters had discovered the magical world of Harry Potter, and it had been since then that they had been trying to live in it.

Leo was the oldest. She was really named Lenore, of course, but her boyish behavior as a child, combined with the old fashioned sound of the name, had earned her a shorter nickname. Leo however, now nineteen and the oldest, was not boyish at all. In appearance anyway. What was different about the Lector sisters was their long hair. Each girl had long blonde hair, of some varying hue, to the waist bands of their pants, and that is where they kept it. Leo's hair was the color of gold. It glowed orange as the sunset in proper light, but indoors was so yellow gold hardly anyone could keep their eyes off of it. She had blue gray eyes the color of a lake on a stormy day, and a face that belonged in renaissance paintings. She was quite good with her eyes, and could penetrate people whenever she so desired. It was hard to escape Leo's eyes, and her personality was so, that you could not avoid it.

Cathy was the second child of the Lector family. Green eyes that glowed the rich deep color of emeralds, and hair like the sunset, she had many suitors, but was far too shy to take advantage of them. She was only sixteen, but had already finished high school in the spring and would begin her sophomore year of college in the fall, as she had already completed many courses. She was the shyest of the sisters, but perhaps the sharpest. She enjoyed reading so much, that she had double majors in the fall at the college their father taught at; Creative Writing and Literature.

The youngest of the Lector sisters was Annabelle. Annabelle Lee to be exact. For each one of the Lector sisters was named after a literary character. Annabelle, like Leo, had also shortened her name, as it was far too long for such a small girl. She was twelve, but not the size of most twelve year olds. Leo and Cathy, short for Catherine, had both been tall for their ages, and both were nearly six feet tall. Anna, however, had not yet crossed five feet on her twelfth birthday, and was thin and delicate looking. She had corn blonde hair and periwinkle blue eyes. She was so pale that she had the look of a porcelain doll. It was thought that Anna was so small because she had been born too early, and perhaps it was true. She theorized that God had decided she need to be born on Christmas Day, as that was her birthday, and that he liked her better small.

The Lectors, the girls' parents, were quite the bookworms as well. Mr. Lector was a Literary Professor at the local University. Mrs. Lector had been a Librarian before she got married, but was now raising and teaching the Lector children. You see, there were only three girls, but there were four boys, all younger than them.

Lenore name was chosen because Edgar Allan Poe was Mrs. Lector's favorite poet. In fact, Leo's full name was Lenore Raven Lector. Catherine had been named after the heroine of Wuthering Heights, and Annabelle after another poem. The boys, too, were all named after fictional characters. The oldest son was named Calvin, which turned out to be quite precise, as he looked a great deal like Cathy, and shared her freckles and reddish hair. He perfectly fit his counterpart from A Wrinkle In Time. He was tall, like the older two, and though he was only ten, was quite the athlete. He enjoyed reading in his spare time, but loved to run and play any sports he was able to learn. The twins, who were seven years old and quite a handful, had not been named Fred and George, but rather John and Michael for JM Barrie. It had been the girls' favorite story until Harry Potter was introduced to them. David, named for Dickens, who was the youngest and not even speaking yet, was born with a small tuft of jet black hair, like his grandfather. He was the only Lector child with dark hair. The girls had insisted on naming him Harry, but Mrs. Lector said it might be too cruel later in life. Instead, the girls had received a black cat for Christmas, and subsequently, Anna's birthday, and had named it Harry instead, as the cat had glowing green eyes.

Leo scooped Harry into her arms on her way to bed, as he was perched on one of the stairs up to her attic bedroom. Leo had received the coveted attic for a bedroom on her sixteenth birthday. Cathy and Anna were left to share a room, to Cathy's disappointment, when Mr. and Mrs. Lector turned Leo's old bedroom into an office. However, it had been given to Cathy on her sixteenth birthday as her own room, leaving Anna in their original room, to have to herself.

The Lector house was a marvelous place. Three stories high with a basement and attic, it was an old Victorian house, whose floorboards squeaked and lights flickered. In strong winds it sounded as though the house was speaking to them, and whenever it rained it failed to produce senseless noise, but a symphony of percussion, to which the children would put on their pajamas, make newspaper hats, and drink hot cocoa to as they danced around the house to the music.

After the release of the girls' favorite book, they had hung a sign on the front porch that read 'The Burrow', though it was not just the Burrow. The basement served as the Potions dungeon, the living room as Neverland, and the back yard as Narnia. Middle Earth was an adventure that took place over the entire house and yard, and the thick trees bordering the back yard were, of course, off limits. A sign in front of them read 'The Forbidden Forest: Do not enter if you do not wish to die a most painful death'. Of course, it was not spelled as precisely, as the twins had made the sign.

Leo pushed open her bedroom door with her free hand, and stepped inside. The lights were off, and she dared not turn them on. The moon was full tonight, and her room always looked best in the moonlight. She had a four poster bed with sheer white drapings, and her walls had been painted a pale shade of lilac, so in the moonlight they looked a bright silver. Her pointed ceiling, which was left exposed wood like the floor, had glow-in-the-dark star stickers on it, in the exact pattern of the northern hemisphere.

Harry leapt from her arms and quickly bounded to her bed, where he curled up beside her pillow. Leo closed the door behind her, and crossed to her small window. She pulled it open to look at the stars, and thought of leaving it open as she slept, as it was a humid summer night, but decided not to, because the air smelled of rain. Which ironically, was precisely the reason she wanted it open. She took one last look at the moon before she closed the window, then quickly undressed and changed into her pajamas, which were meager as it was summer time. Quite tired, after a long day at the coffee and book shop where she worked, she climbed into bed.

Harry was purring so loudly that he was vibrating, but he had moved and curled up in Leo's side, so she did not mind. She had just begun to drift off into the hazy world of dreams, when a sharp popping noise had awoken her suddenly.

She sat up quickly, looking around in her bedroom. Her eyes were trying hard to pull her room into focus, which was difficult with her lilac walls and her white drapes. It appeared as though she had been asleep longer than she thought she had, because the shadows were longer and darker than they had been when she had laid down.

"Harry?" she asked, pushing her sheets off of her and standing. Harry was standing by the door, mewing and circling as though he wanted out. Leo opened the door, and as Harry bounded down the stairs, she peered down to see that all of the other lights were off in the house. She quickly lost site of Harry in the shadows, but decided not to wait up for him, and closed the door. He could sleep with Anna or the twins.

Leo shuffled sleepily towards her bed, and realized that the window was open. She suddenly felt more awake than she had been. She looked around her room, then crossed quickly and closed her window. She turned and looked back at her room, and the shadows suddenly seemed longer. She shivered, and climbed back into her bed. She had just pulled the sheet to her shoulder, when she realized she had seen something among the shadows; something that didn't belong there.

There, standing in a dark corner of her room, was a tall man wearing lengthy black robes. He had silvery blonde hair, and a pointy face. Leo recognized him of course, and was sure she was dreaming. She had to be dreaming, it was not possible for literary characters to jump from their pages.

"Lenore," he said, and she sat up. His stare was very penetrating.

"Draco?" she asked. He nodded slightly.

"We need your help."


	2. Part 1

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**Destiny Denied  
Part 1  
by Merox**

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Leo climbed out of bed slowly. She didn't bother to find her robe, or cover herself in any way. She was too busy staring at Draco Malfoy, a supposedly fictional character that had bullied her hero for five years. He looked older than the fifteen he was supposed to be; a lot older. There was deep remorse in his eyes, and he was looking at Leo in a very peculiar way. Fine lines were starting to form around his eyes. His robes, once very fine and expensive, looked as though they had been used for a very long time.

"This is really..." Leo said, though she already knew the answer.

"You're not dreaming," Malfoy said.

"Why would you need me?" Leo asked, not daring to step closer. She didn't know why he was here, or whether he could be trusted.

"We can explain everything later, just take this," he said and held out a key for her. It was old and slightly bent. She took it into her hand to get a better look. The upper corner had thick, orange rust, and one of the notches looked to be broken off. Leo had just figured what it would be, what it must be, when she felt a sudden tug behind her belly button.

There was a whirl of color, a rush of air, and then she found herself fighting for her balance on a cold wooden floor. She looked up, raising her eyes to a darkened drawing room. There were old, musty smelling books lining the wall, and a large, old tapestry hanging on the wall opposite her. Moth eaten, dusty looking sofas were in the center of the room.

Standing there looking at her were three pairs of eyes, one of which was green and looking at her through round wire glasses. She looked upon Harry Potter as though it were a dream, a celebrity of her world, though he really wasn't from her world at all.

Ron Weasley was standing with his arms crossed, surveying her. He was much taller than Harry, but was not as gangly as Leo had expected. His nose was long and splattered with freckles. His blue eyes were shadowed, and not only by his expression.

Hermione Granger was far prettier than Leo had imagined. She had always thought that Hermione would have beyond average looks, but she was positively breathtaking. Aside from her frizzy, out of control hair, Hermione was by far the most beautiful girl Leo had ever seen. She quickly noticed that Hermione wore a plain gold band on her left ring finger, and Leo looked to Ron and Harry to see if they did as well. Ron had his arms crossed, and Leo could not see any ring, but saw that Harry too, was wearing a wedding band.

There was a sharp pop and Leo turned to her left to see that Malfoy had appeared. "Why do I always have to go get the Muggle?" he asked, sounding quite irritated, though Leo could tell there was something in his voice that suggested he was feigning it.

"Hush, Malfoy, you've never done anything like it before," Hermione said sharply. Malfoy rolled his eyes, and saw that Leo was still looking at him. She noticed that he too was wearing a wedding band, though his was silver. He saw this and quickly folded his arms.

"Now, I know this must be a terrible shock to you, and-" Hermione started.

"I've got one question," Leo said abruptly.

"Yes?" Hermione asked, looking like she felt terribly sorry for Leo.

"Why didn't I get a letter?" Leo smiled, and saw that Ron and Harry's faces had cracked into smiles as well.

"We find that Muggles who are extremely interested in Magic often have wizarding children... so most likely your children will be witches and wizards," Hermione explained with an amused grin. Her large brown eyes had not sparkled until then. Leo grinned back.

"Is that so?" Leo smiled. "Well then, looks like I'm getting a jump start here. What could you ever need from me?"

"Well, actually," Hermione began, "I found you on the internet. There was a large convention a few months ago, and you made it into the papers as the Trivia Challenge winner."

"Looks like you're as good with books as Granger is," Malfoy said. Leo turned and looked back at him, and saw him slipping something into his pocket.

"Looks like she's as good with the internet as I am with books," Leo said, surveying Malfoy's eyes to see if she could find any clues. He indeed was the most perplexing; at least, his apparent position on the good-guy team.

Hermione blushed a bit at Leo's words. "Well, you see, Harry's story - our story, has been published to the Muggle world. The woman you know as JK Rowling... we know her as Sibyll Trelawney."

"Professor Trelawney? Really?" Leo was so excited as the reality of this all caught up to her, and her hands had begun to shake. "I would have pegged her as Rita Skeeter!"

Ron laughed out loud, a hearty, deep laugh. "No, no...that louse couldn't sell a book if her life depended on it." Leo smiled broadly, and was slightly aware of the fact that Malfoy kept looking at her. Perhaps it was her hair, that's what it must have been.

"So, I presume she was a better Diviner than she let on in the books?" Leo asked.

"I suppose so. I've never read the books," Hermione said.

"Why not?" Leo asked.

"Dumbledore," Harry said. Leo had avoided looking at him. Partially because his presence and his glare were so intimidating, but also because he was a lot more attractive than she had imagined. And the accent, oh the accent. Leo looked back to Hermione, as she had always identified better with her anyway, both of them being bookworms.

"He charmed the books. No one with magical blood could read them. We tried," he continued, "but he had charmed every copy."

"It was different for everyone. For me, it was as though I were trying to read under water," Hermione volunteered.

"The words were too small, like I needed different glasses. I tried using a magnifying glass, but they only got smaller," Harry said.

"They didn't show up for me at all," Ron shrugged. Leo smiled again. She couldn't help but do that, as there was so much she wanted to know and see.

"Dumbledore kept Trelawney under lock and key. He figured out pretty quickly what was going on after she wrote the first book. At first, we all thought it was just a gimmick, someone else writing their 'personal account' of Harry, but Dumbledore realized what it truly was. He was present for every single book's publication. Each copy he charmed personally," Hermione explained.

"Are you serious? That's millions of books!" Leo was exasperated.

"That's how he did it. He was a lot more amazing than she ever gave him credit for then," Harry scoffed. This was quite a surprise. The last Leo had read Harry wasn't too happy with Dumbledore. Leo suddenly realized where she was standing. She looked towards the tapestry on the wall.

"_The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black: Toujours Pur_... Holy-" Leo felt her knees might give out underneath her. "This is - I'm in Grimmauld Place?"

"Where?" Ron asked.

"Trelawney must have changed the important details of things. Couldn't very well reveal our headquarters, could she?" Harry asked. His voice had lost the sarcasm and wit Leo had always imagined in it. In its place was cynicism.

"This is 31 Finney Park," Hermione said "But yes, this is the Black family home and this is where the Order met." Leo instinctively looked towards Harry at the mention of Sirius' family, only to have him look towards the floor quickly, his jaw clenched.

"Okay..." Leo sighed heavily, then took another deep breath. "Okay..." she said again.

"I know this is quite a bit to take in all at once." Hermione had an apologetic tone to her voice. "If you need anything, to sit, tea, a robe - you look rather cold." There was a pause, and they all looked towards Malfoy.

"Fine." He sighed heavily, sounding like a small spoiled child, and left the drawing room.

"We need your help, Lenore. You see, Professor Trelawney has gone missing. We don't know what will happen next. And we don't know our past as well as you do," Hermione said.

"I'll help you of course, I just-" Leo was interrupted by two popping sounds of Apparation. She turned to the center of the room, to see two figures hobbling in, holding onto each other. One had shoulder length, fiery red hair, the other was tall and plump, with singed blond hair. She recognized them of course, as Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom. They both looked as though they had Flooed into the room, as they were both covered in black marks that looked like soot. Ginny however, had harsh purple streaks on her left side, and Leo realized they must be hex marks.

"Neville!" Hermione gasped, running and helping Ginny support him. He looked to be crying, and Leo noticed both he and Ginny were wearing wedding bands as well. Neville's was plain and silver, but Ginny's was gold and had large red stones surrounded by diamonds.

"It's Luna... she-" Neville gave into a sob. Hermione looked from his face to Ginny's, whose sorrow showed through enough that she simply had to nod. Hermione and Ginny escorted Neville out of the room, while Harry and Ron followed at a concerned distance. Malfoy had just entered the room with a long, dark blue cloak in his hand. He put it over Leo's shoulders as they both watched the other four leave the room.

"Are you tired?" Malfoy asked. "It was only a few hours before sunrise your time..." he said, but Leo turned around to him.

"Is Neville married to Luna?" Leo asked.

"Yes," Malfoy said, and held his hands behind his back, looking at Leo in a very businesslike manner. Leo thought of asking him who he was married to, and wondered if it was indeed past tense, like Neville now was. However, she kept herself from asking, and instead, found herself in an old habit of simply staring into someone's eyes to find the answer. Malfoy however, had very intense eyes, and they held an obvious mystery behind them. Leo had begun running scenarios through her head regarding Malfoy's obligatory change of heart. After a few seconds of finding nothing in his steely eyes, she turned towards the door.

"I'm gonna find Hermione," Leo said as she exited the same door the rest had.

"You don't know your way around," Malfoy objected.

"Yes I do," Leo replied.

It was off course, only partially true, but she was not too keen on being left alone in a room with Draco Malfoy, no matter how much it seemed he had taken a turn for the good. Outside of the drawing room, Leo found herself in a dark hall lined with blackened, aged portraits. She saw one, towards the stairs, with moth-eaten hangings and carefully, quietly, crept towards it. She reached the portrait and noticed that the drapes were not closed completely. Peering inside she saw no portrait on the wall. There were however, deep gashes and burn marks, as well as chunks of the wall itself missing. Breathing a sigh of relief, she started up the squeaking old stairs. Leo was making her way down the hall towards the lone small window before she went up to the next floor. She was halfway down when the door on her right flew open. She jumped and plastered herself up against the wall. The person in the doorway had drawn their wand quickly and accurately, though no spell or hex was cast.

"You surprised me," Harry said, tucking his wand back into his robes. Harry looked her over once. "I see Malfoy found you robes... they fit pretty well." Harry added, "Nice match for your eyes, too."

"Thank you," Leo muttered. A moment of quite awkward silence passed between them. Leo was trying to take in every inch of him, just to commit it to memory. She knew this was not a dream, but she wasn't sure how long it would last. There were other questions she wanted to ask, but was not sure how appropriate they were. She was in completely new territory.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"What?" Leo asked in response, completely surprised.

"You want to ask me something?" Harry responded dryly.

"Legilimency?" Leo asked, quite intrigued by the subject.

"No, common sense," Harry said sarcastically.

Leo bit her lip to keep from laughing. Harry was actually intimidating her more than Malfoy had. She watched his eyes for a while, then began, "You see, the last I've read is your fifth year," a look passed through Harry's eyes, and his face seemed to soften a bit. "Well, he was my favorite chara-" Leo paused awkwardly, "He was my favorite, the one I would have wanted to get to know..." The more she continued, the more uncomfortable she felt. "Did you ever get his name cleared? Do you have a picture of Sirius?"

"Sir - _I_ – Us," Harry corrected her sharply, there was a bit of a growl of impatience in his voice, "No one ever says it right. What a ridiculous name, _Serious_ Black. It sounds like a punk band." Leo quickly stifled a giggle. Logic told her what a gruesome, dangerous situation she now found herself in, but she could not suppress her childish giddiness.

"Well, are there any pictures? Can I see him?" Leo asked, feeling as giddy as if Harry were an actor or rock star. There was a strange sort of strangled reservation behind Harry's eyes.

"It's just - well, I don't mean to intrude, but - I feel like I need some sort of... I saw him through your eyes Harry, and when he died, or rather, when I read about him dying, I felt like I lost him too." Leo said all of this very quickly, feeling both foolish and somewhat selfish. Harry surveyed her for a moment, then nodded, as if assuring himself of something, and reached into a pocket of his robe. The object he pulled out was thick and black, and looked somewhat like a Muggle wallet. Inside however, were pictures of many people, all of whom Leo recognized, as they had been running amuck in her imagination for seven years now.

The first was what looked like a family portrait of the Weasleys. They all had flaming red hair. Mr. Weasley was standing in the back, smiling and laughing with his arm around Mrs. Weasley. He had a shiny spot on the top of his head, and a large, easy going smile. Molly appeared quite as Leo had imagined, short and plump...completely warm and welcoming. She would be on Leo's list of people to meet next. Well, all of the Weasleys would. Then Leo realized that not all of the Weasleys were present. Noticeably Ginny, as Molly was the only female in the picture. But neither Ron nor Bill was in the picture. Leo spotted Percy and Charlie looking relaxed and cool, and quite happy to be around their family. Percy looked just as silly in his horn rimmed glasses as Leo had imagined he would. Fred and George, who were quite good looking, were taking turns making faces at her, and alternately laughing. Leo smiled as she looked at the Weasleys one more time before flipping the small page.

Here, on the left were Moody, Hagrid, and Snape, all sitting in what must have been Hogwarts' Great Hall. Snape looked just as foul and smarmy as expected, though quite a bit greasier. Hagrid was huge, every feature could be described as overly large and words could not do his appearance justice. He was completely overwhelming and left Leo speechless. Moody was quite grotesque, but not at all frightening. His neon blue magical eye, however, was eerily moving around his head and kept fixing itself on Snape.

The right side of these two pictures was what looked like a Hogwarts School picture. There were three teenage, mischievous looking boys, and one beautiful red headed girl, all in black robes with a Hogwarts crest on them, which looked quite different than the crest that was put on all the merchandise. There was one small boy, in what must have been wizarding pajamas. He had thin black hair on top of his head and bright blue eyes. They were all waving and laughing, and the most handsome kept pulling faces. The one next to the redhead was obviously James Potter. Harry's resemblance was just as uncanny as written, and Lily's eyes were the same vivid emerald as Harry's. A sandy haired, tired looking boy, who looked to be the scrawniest and youngest of the four older teenagers, was smiling and waving, then laughing at the two black haired boys. On the far right however, was a very good looking boy with shaggy black hair layered past his ears and bright grey eyes. He would make faces, and then smile at his friends. He turned and winked at Leo, then pulled faces again. Sirius looked at the small boy and bounced him on his knee until he was laughing adequately, then turned his attention towards the front of the picture, smiling flirtatiously. Wizard pictures were amazing.

On the next set of pages was only one picture on the left side. Leo recognized him immediately; his long silver beard and hair, twinkling eyes and half moon glasses. It was Albus Dumbledore. Leo had just started to turn back to the picture of Sirius Black when the blank spot on the right caught her attention. Grey mist was swirling around inside of it. Slowly a picture of a spacey looking blonde girl was appearing. She had hair that disappeared out of the frame and large, soft eyes. She gave a small, but sincere smile to Leo, who suddenly realized this must be Luna Lovegood, now Longbottom.

Surprised, and slightly fearful that she was right, she snapped the small black book shut, to read the silver writing stamped into the black leather.

"_Le livre du mort_..." Leo looked at Harry with tears threatening to spill out of her eyes, "The Book-"

"Of the Dead," Harry finished. "The ones close to me that I've lost." Leo opened the book again, and now tears had escaped to her cheeks. "The Weasleys, and Lupin, and Hagrid, and-" she gasped, "Dumbledore?"

Harry nodded grimly.

"But - how? If- but... Dumbledore..." she trailed off again, and looked down at the picture of the Marauders. While she was looking at Sirius' face, wishing she could have known him like she now knew Harry and Ron and Hermione, the door Harry had come out of opened again, and Ginny stepped through.

"Last Halloween," Ginny said, catching Leo's attention. "Ginny Potter, pleased to meet you." She held out her right hand, putting her other on Harry's back. Leo smiled, the tears running down her cheeks freely.

"I feel like an ass," Leo said, "I didn't really know these people... I just, read about them, but I feel like..." she trailed off and looked at Ginny, who had small fine lines around her eyes that didn't match the rest of her youthful skin, and suggested great amounts of stress. "I wish I could have met your family." More sadness filled Ginny's eyes, and she pulled the corner of her mouth into almost a wistful smile.

"I wish you could have too." Ginny smiled.

"Quit the tears, darling," someone said, gently wiping Leo's cheeks with a soft handkerchief. Leo gasped and jumped. She turned to see a tall, quite handsome redhead, with a dangling earring and a ponytail. He smiled just a bit, and waited a moment, then reached out and finished drying Leo's cheeks.

"Guess they make Muggles a little jumpier than I remember." Bill smiled at her, and Leo couldn't help but smile back.

"Hi Bill." She smiled. "Nice to meet you."

"And Hermione's right again. Just as brilliant as she promised you would be." Bill smiled wider, tucking his handkerchief into a pocket.

"Well, it's not everyday I see someone with long red hair and a dragon fang earring." Leo chuckled. He looked as though the years of fighting and stress had caught up with him as well. He looked perpetually tired and, glancing down, Leo realized he was missing his left leg underneath the knee. In its place was a strange, silver foot.

"Courtesy of our dear Draco Malfoy," Bill said. "Lost it when we lost the Burrow," he said matter-of-factly. Leo felt another wave of sadness flow over her, and the reality of it all was beginning to set in.

"When was that?" Leo asked, and glanced at both Bill and Harry, though Harry had a quite different type of sorrow than Bill.

"He's asleep," Hermione announced as she and Ron stepped into the hall. "Dreamless for a while." She simply sighed heavily after that. She looked at them all.

"Well, I was sent up to get the lot of you for lunch. Malfoy said Dobby made French Onion soup," Bill said.

"That's my favorite," Leo smiled, though the mood was still quite heavy. They all wordlessly started towards the staircase after a long, passing moment. Leo, without thinking, tucked the small black pocket book into the robes she was wearing. She followed Harry and Ginny, but Ron and Hermione were hanging behind, whispering to themselves.

"How bad was it?" Ron asked quietly. Leo was straining her ears to listen. However, the sound of six people walking down the stairs drowned out most of what Hermione was saying.

"-he doesn't... -but there were too many pieces... -Ginny suggested we use a memory charm..." Hermione said. A sudden fear clutched Leo by the stomach, and she wasn't too sure she'd be able to eat anything. Leo turned towards the basement stairs, and she knew they would be approaching the kitchen soon. She noticed though, that Bill had been watching her face.

"You don't have to do this if you don't want to, Lenore," he said softly. But Leo clenched her jaws, pressed her lips together and with a determined sigh, nodded her head.

"I know. But I want to," Leo answered him resolutely. They turned into the kitchen and Leo saw that Malfoy had already situated himself at the table, and was eating his French Onion soup. There were six other places set at the table, three on each side. Absentmindedly, Leo just followed Hermione, as she felt most attached to her. Everyone but Bill sat opposite Malfoy, which meant that Ron and Harry had to move their soup across the table, so not to sit on the same side as Malfoy, putting five across from two. He seemed to give them all a little sneer, but continued on with his soup nonetheless.

"We lost Luna, anyone else?" Harry asked, poking his cheese angrily.

"No. Kingsley was hurt, but it was nothing major." Ginny said, "Tonks got him to St. Mungo's quickly enough." Leo suddenly realized that Ginny still had hex marks all over her.

"You're fine though, right Gin?" Ron asked, chewing on a long piece of a cheese string. Leo tried not to laugh at him.

"So are we even going to try and have a funeral for Luna, or will there be another memorial service?" Harry asked, using the tip of his wand to slice the cheese strings that came up from his soup.

Ginny looked to be slightly more grim than earlier in the conversation, but Hermione looked just as disturbed as Leo. "It was Rumpia at close range," Ginny said. Bill shook his head and turned his attention to his soup. Leo glanced around at their faces.

"Uh, what's Rumpia?" she asked. "It was never in the books."

"It wouldn't be, Lenore." Hermione sighed, wiping her cheek quickly. "It's dark magic." Leo nodded and looked at her soup briefly, but on the way she noticed that Malfoy was looking at her, and this made her more determined to look at her soup. However, something nagged at the edge of her brain.

"What does it do?" Leo asked hesitantly, and looked around. Hermione had her eyes wide, and Ron glanced away when he met Leo's blue eyes. She turned and looked on her other side, towards Ginny and Harry. Ginny gave her a surveying look while she inhaled sharply through her nose. Harry on the other hand, licked his lips.

"Did you ever put a hot dog in a Muggle microwave without putting holes in it first?" he asked, his voice with a detached dryness that Leo did not like at all.

"Subtle, Potter," Malfoy said disapprovingly. Harry simply turned and glared at him. Leo looked down and poked at the cheese on top of her soup. There was quiet around the table for a moment, and then Hermione cleared her throat slightly.

"Well, Lenore, whenever you're ready, we can sit down and fill you in on everything," Hermione said.

"All right," Leo answered quietly, still staring at her soup and wishing her imagination wasn't so vivid. There was a long moment of awkward quiet again, and Malfoy spoke.

"You shouldn't have said anything, Potter," Malfoy spat.

"Sod off, Malfoy. You're not the master of tact, either." Harry responded venomously.

"She reads; she's got a good imagination. You should have left the explaining to Granger," he sneered.

"It's Weasley, and has been for quite a few years, thank you," Hermione added briskly, sitting up a bit straighter.

Leo however, instantly cooled the tension by giggling slightly. They all looked thoroughly confused at the small grin she wore. "I knew it."

She looked up to see them all looking at her curiously, "Well, come on, I mean, all those Harry/Hermione shippers are nuts." Leo said, "It's a bit obvious." She grinned sheepishly, and felt her cheeks turn slightly pink. She swore she saw Harry grin just slightly, and again, caught Malfoy looking at her. To avoid the strangeness now, she looked down at her soup, and began to eat slowly, to get her mind off of him.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, as they all seemed to realize what they had briefly been distracted from. Harry cleared his throat, "Well, tact or not, there are things that we need to discuss," he said with a slight sneer, and Leo saw a glance pass between him and Malfoy. "What are we going to do now with Luna out of the picture and Neville as good as gone?"

"We could just let the Potions Master handle it," Bill said, a hint of irritation in his voice.

"I thought Snape was dead," Leo said.

"He is," Malfoy answered, staring Leo down again. "I teach Potions at Hogwarts now."

"Figures," Leo said, shrugging a bit and looking down at her soup again. She could feel Malfoy's eyes lingering on her for a moment longer.

"I didn't just mean their Potions abilities," Harry said with a slight sigh. "Neville's going to be out of it for a while, that drops us down to six."

"What about Tonks and Kingsley?" Hermione asked.

"I meant the core six, Hermione," Harry said, with the vocal equivalent of rolling his eyes at her. "Eight was not good to begin with, but you know he's still at least 40 strong. If he was able to get Luna from just a simple Ministry mission... what exactly were you doing, anyway?"

Hermione looked quite awkward, and her eyes were wide, as though she had just been asked a horribly embarrassing question. "Luna and I had been working on something. That's why we grabbed Lenore, if our thesis was correct, we would need to get something from the Department of Mysteries," Hermione explained, eating her soup neatly.

"You should have told me so I could go with them," Harry said, poking violently at his cheese. Hermione looked slightly pale.

"I didn't think you'd want to go back there," she said quietly. There was very little talk now, and a sense of heavy sadness and thick dread lowered over the table. Leo had only taken a few spoonfuls of her soup, but was unable to eat any more as her nervousness and fear begin to take its toll on her stomach.

Leo glanced up from her soup, setting her spoon down, just to catch Malfoy's eye again. Luckily for her, the door to the kitchen opened, and a fairly pretty girl with a pointy face and short, neon green hair stepped into the kitchen. She sighed heavily and sat next to Draco, putting her elbows on the edge of the table and holding her face. She looked to be quite as down as the rest of them felt. Leo looked to Malfoy, who looked completely surprised to see her, though she seemed not to notice. Her eyes however, fell onto Leo.

"Who are you?" she asked in a very childlike manner.

"Lenore Lector," Leo introduced herself, as Hermione had a mouthful of cheese.

"An American! What school did you go to?" she sounded quite excited.

"Oh, uh-" Leo wondered how best to say that she was non-magical.

"She's a Muggle, Tonks." Hermione spoke for her.

"Oh," she looked quite surprised, "Welcome to the Wizarding World... I guess." There was a long pause again, and Leo was growing quite weary of them. Tonks turned to Harry, "What is she doing here, anyway?"

"I was just beginning to wonder that myself," Leo said quickly to keep her fright from showing.

"Oh, well I've brought her here to help us. I have a theory that I was working on with Luna," Hermione trailed off slightly, but then took a deep breath and continued on quickly, "and-" her voice broke, and she cleared her throat, "and Lenore knows Trelawney's books extensively, so if she can-"

"You've recruited a fan?" Tonks nearly laughed, and Leo's stomach tightened even more as she was insulted. "We must really be hurting..."

"They've had Trelawney for over a month!" Hermione said, sounding quite flustered, "Jessica is going to come back from the Holidays with her cousins in France to find out that her mother's been missing! If we don't do something soon it's only going to get worse, and I don't know about you, but I don't want to see what happens next!"

"Chill, Hermione." Tonks sighed, "Geez, I was only saying-"

"I know what you're saying, Tonks, but someone had better start thinking of something, and it looks like I'm the only one around here who hasn't given up!" With that, Hermione slammed her spoon down and stormed out of the kitchen.

They all watched her out, and Ron sighed slightly, as though he felt sorry for Hermione, and got up to quickly followed her. Tonks shook her head slightly, but Harry simply continued on with his soup as if nothing had happened.

Leo kept watching her soup, but eventually, pushed it away. She swallowed hard and looked around. Now that Hermione had left the room, she felt completely alone. She didn't feel comfortable enough with any of the others, and didn't exactly want to get up and walk out of the room alone.

"Shacklebolt will be fine," Tonks said, folding her arms.

"He's not in little pieces and nothing's missing?" Harry asked sarcastically.

"He was a bit more fortunate than Loony, if that's what you mean," Tonks said, and Leo looked at her in exasperation, and swore she saw a twitch of a smile in the corner of her mouth.

"That wasn't very nice," Leo said flat out.

"Look, Lauren," Tonks started condescendingly.

"Lenore," she corrected.

"Whatever. If you can't learn real quickly to let these things roll off you, you won't survive a week here," she said sternly, as if lecturing a small child, which Lenore did not appreciate at all.

"Give her a break, Nymphadora, she's not going to have to see anything like that," Malfoy said. It confused Leo to no end that he kept standing up for her.

"What are you doing here, by the way?" Tonks turned on Malfoy with a slight bit of annoyance in her voice, no doubt from the use of her first name. "Your mother said that you were on Holiday."

"I couldn't stay away," Malfoy sneered sardonically.

"What's with the mood, Tonks?" Bill asked.

"Just a little grouchy about Longbottom, that's all," she sighed.

"I'm more interested in what's gotten into Saint Malfoy," Harry said, glaring at him.

"Clever," he replied dryly.

"I'm, um," Leo said, trying to find an excuse to get away from Harry and Malfoy, "I'm going to go find Hermione," she said, standing from her seat, and leaving, quite aware of the many pairs of eyes on her.

Leo was pacing around the drawing room nervously. Her head ached, first from a lack of sleep, but mostly from the amazement of her current situation. While Malfoy had found her robes, he had not found her shoes, or anything to cover her feet, and the floor of 12 Grimmauld Place, or rather 31 Finney Park, was quite cold even though it was late August. She had been with Hermione in the drawing room since after lunch. Which was another thing contributing to her headache. Her stomach hurt from not eating, but was too upset to eat anything: Hermione felt the same and so they had both skipped dinner.

She'd been scrapping the back of her brain for all of the Harry Potter information she could recall. The problem seemed to be, that every time she could think of something important, Hermione could not help her develop her idea. It was the tiny details that Leo knew that had brought Hermione to call for her help, and it was the tiny details, the hints buried deep within the literature itself, that Leo could not recall clearly. She knew she knew it, but it was like throwing a ball off of a roof; there was no way to review her ideas once they were out in the open. She needed a wall.

"Well, what happened after that?" Hermione asked, her quill perched readily over her parchment.

"You know what happened next, Hermione," Leo sighed heavily. Her head felt like it might split open, and she knew what pain was described in the books whenever Harry's scar gave him problems.

"Well, perhaps we should try moving on to our fifth year-"

"I know fifth year the least," Leo said.

"But you won that competition right after it's release," Hermione reasoned.

"That's because I had just finished it, I haven't read book five since." Leo sighed. She had dreaded admitting it at all, but most of all, she dreaded the question that was waiting readily on Hermione's lips.

"Why?" she asked, looking both saddened and surprised.

Leo sighed and stopped her pacing, looking down at the floor, feeling embarrassed, and slightly ashamed. "Sirius," she admitted after a moment. "I just - when he died, I didn't want to read the books again. I felt like a part of me died. And watching Harry in so much pain, and the unfair treatment, and that horrible woman-"

"Umbridge," Hermione growled.

"-It was just so terrible. I didn't enjoy the books like I used to. And part of me knew that I wouldn't ever again. There were awful things that had to happen in order to get to the end and it all just all felt so _wrong_," Leo said, sitting heavily on the couch and grabbing her forehead.

Hermione was quiet for a moment, then closed her ink bottle and set her quill and parchment on a nearby table. "It was wrong of me to want to work so hard so soon. I'm sorry."

"No, Hermione." Leo sighed again, and had the horrible feeling that she was being childish and selfish. "I want to do this for you. I _can_ do this for you-"

"Lenore, I know," Hermione said in a comforting manner. "But you've been awake far too long, and you're stomach is empty. This was too much to ask of you all in one day. I'll take you to your room so you can get some rest."

Leo couldn't help but smile at her. "Thanks. I'll be better tomorrow."

"Don't worry. Let's get to bed. It's been a long day for us all." Hermione sighed, patting her hand. She stood and stretched a bit, and waited for Leo to get to her feet. They silently left the Drawing Room, and once they reached the Hallway, Leo let out a long, deep yawn.

Hermione turned a corner, and without knocking, opened a door on her right. Not knocking would not have bothered Leo, if the room had not been occupied. Draco Malfoy was stretched out on the bed, a book open in his lap. He looked up lazily from his book, as though he were not at all surprised to see the two of them.

"I suppose this is my cue to exit," he drawled, closing his book.

"Unless you'd like her to sleep on one of the couches in the drawing room..." Hermione said, a bit of sarcasm to her voice.

"Don't be stupid, Granger, she can sleep in here," Malfoy said, swinging his legs off the bed and walking towards them.

"It's Weasley, now-" Hermione corrected and the two of them bickered a bit. Leo ignored them, and instead, spent her time looking at the room. There were heavy black drapes hung across all of the walls. In the corner there was a small dark blue couch that looked to be quite old. There was a four poster bed in the center of the room, with two small end tables on either side, each bearing an oil lamp. There was one small grimy window, and Leo assumed that this was one of the two front windows. The sheets on the bed were black as well, and there were four pillows on the bed. It looked quite inviting to Leo in her tired state.

Malfoy gave Leo a long, appraising look on his way out that Leo had strangely grown used to in her short time there. She turned her head just slightly to meet his eyes on the way out, and it seemed he did not expect it, though he did not look away.

"Well, this used to be the room Ginny and I slept in on Holiday before going to school," Hermione began to explain once Malfoy was out of the room.

"I know," Leo said.

"Right," Hermione said, nodding a bit to remind herself. "Well, it's Malfoy's now that he's working with us. It's not the type of room I'd like to give you, but it's the only one available."

"It's not really available if Malfoy's living in it, is it?" Leo asked, looking around once more. Hermione looked a bit surprised, and it took her a moment to respond.

"Oh, well, I suppose. But it's just Malfoy," Hermione said.

"Yeah," Leo laughed slightly. "We have to talk about him tomorrow." Leo sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the rain that had begun outside.

"He's acting quite strangely today. He didn't put up much of a fight when I asked him to get you, and he's been remarkably... well, subdued," Hermione said. Leo laughed in approval.

"It's safe to say that none of you are really like I imagined you. Though the little boy they cast to play Harry in the movies looks surprisingly like him." Leo smiled largely, and Hermione chuckled in appreciation.

"All right, come down to breakfast whenever you like. I won't wake you, and I'll make sure no one else makes too much noise. Goodnight, Lenore," Hermione said, making her way to the door.

"Goodnight, Hermione," Leo answered wistfully, still staring out the window. She sighed heavily, and after Hermione had closed the door and her footsteps had died away in the hall, Leo took off her dark blue robe and draped it on the end of the bed. She pulled down the sheets, which were still warm where Malfoy had been sitting on them, and climbed in. She was so tired that it felt as though her very bones were aching.

Leo's eyes were closed before her head even hit the pillow. Her mind was already wondering off into itself, recounting the day's events, when she suddenly realized what she had seen on the night stand. Her eyes bolted open. There on the wooden end table was a woman's ring. It was a silver band, with what looked like a large emerald. It had small diamonds around it, and four shiny black stones that must have been onyx. She sat up, scooping the ring into her hand to look at it better, and it felt as though an idea had just Apparated into her head with a resounding snap.

She pushed the blankets off of her, and carefully set the ring back on the table. Without bothering to put her robe back on, she made her way out of the bedroom, and down the hall. Without thinking to check the drawing room, she made her way down to the kitchen. Malfoy must have heard her on the stairs leading down to the basement, because he did not look at all surprised to see her.

Leo leaned in the doorway, looking at Malfoy as though she were about to accuse him of something. She meant only to ask him questions, but being that it was Draco Malfoy her manner was not as light hearted. He had been reading the same book, but closed it and looked at her.

"Who was your wife?" Leo asked, still leaning on the door jam. A small smirk appeared on his lips, and he looked down at his tea.

"Which one?" he asked, setting his book beside him and folding his hands, looking back up at Leo.

"You were married more than once?" she asked, cautiously approaching the table and sitting across from him.

"Twice actually. My first wife was Pansy Parkinson. You'd know her from school, yes?" he asked, conjuring a second teacup with his wand. Leo was so distracted from seeing actual magic that it took her a moment to respond, and when she did, she felt she might resemble a monkey.

"What? Oh, yes," she answered. Malfoy seemed to chuckle to himself, but poured tea into the cup.

"We were engaged from early on, you see. Our families had arranged it. We met on the Hogwarts express for the first time," he said, dropping one lump of sugar into the cup, and just a bit of cream. He tapped his wand to the brim of the cup, and the contents mixed themselves. Malfoy slid the cup across the table to her, and she was amazed that he knew how she liked her tea.

"Do wizards have divorce?" Leo asked.

"No, why do you ask?" Malfoy replied, sipping a bit from his own teacup.

"You said you've been married twice." Leo drank a bit of her tea, and it seemed to have the warming effect she was looking for.

"Oh, yes," Malfoy continued. "Pansy was killed only a few months after we were married. Probably better for her, she wasn't too thrilled about being wife to a traitor," he said, setting his cup down.

"And your second wife?" she asked. A smile spread across Malfoy's face. It had quite a softening effect, and he looked nowhere near as unapproachable as before. It slightly startled Leo.

"My second wife was everything I needed. A complete opposite of myself. She was very… pure. Even still a virgin," he said. Leo cringed slightly and looked down into her teacup; that was not quite the way she wanted to picture Malfoy.

"Though that's a little more than you wanted to know," he said with a mischievous grin. Leo looked back up at him with an eyebrow raised.

"Complete opposite?" Leo asked.

Malfoy smiled again. "Let's just say that if my father had not been dead when I married her, he would have killed us both for it." Leo nodded in understanding, though Malfoy was wearing a very calculating expression.

"You know when you just find someone, and right away you know you want them?" he asked. Leo had to look away from his grey eyes and pretended to find something interesting to stare at in her tea, as she had a funny feeling his most recent question applied to her.

"No, I've never had a boyfriend. I don't meet very many people. I usually have my nose pressed in a book." Leo smiled, laughing a bit.

Malfoy smiled. "Don't worry, even Granger managed to find somebody. Granted, it _was _a Weasley..." he said with a slight joking manner, and lifted his cup to his lips.

Leo found herself laughing with him, "You're a lot easier to talk to than I imagined." She smiled broadly at him, and quickly realizing what she was doing, looked determinedly at her tea again.

There was a moment of passing silence, as though he had realized what she had hoped he didn't.

"No, it's just you." There was another bit of quiet, in which Leo found herself resolute to not looking up at Malfoy, though she knew his eyes were waiting.

"So," he started, and Leo could hear him drink his tea. "What _did_ you imagine me to be like?" he asked.

"Well," Leo felt a little more comfortable looking at him now, "I didn't expect you to be on the right side, for one."

"It doesn't really look like I picked the winning team though, now does it? So I don't know if I'd call that right," he said, looking slightly resentful.

"Aren't you a spy?" Leo asked, slightly surprised.

"No, my trial was far too public, being a student and all. Wouldn't go back though, even if the Dark Lord himself promised me safety." He looked quite uncomfortable talking about that. "I'm sure Granger's explained everything, back to the original subject?" and he flashed Leo such a smile that this time she had to avert her eyes to avoid getting butterflies in her stomach.

"_It's Draco Malfoy," s_he reminded herself silently. "_It's Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy!"_

"Well... I wouldn't have guessed that you would talk to me; a Muggle," she said.

A looked passed briefly behind his eyes. "Well, ten years can change a person."

"It's only been seven," Leo corrected without thinking.

"I rounded up," he drawled.

"Ugh! I hate that! I could always hear exactly what you sounded like whenever I read!" Leo said, in such an outburst that Malfoy was left to simply laugh at her exuberance. Leo couldn't help but laugh a bit too, and she found herself smiling mutually at him.

"Every time you _drawled_ I wanted to smack you!" she said, holding her warm teacup in both hands.

Malfoy smiled a flirtatious, nearly leering smile at her. "I could say something about you smacking me, but now might not be the right time," he said, emphasizing the last word. Leo was too busy gasping to notice. This only made Malfoy smile broader. Leo laughed slightly as they both listened to the rain grow harder outside. She chuckled slightly and finished off her tea quickly.

"I'd better get off to bed. I've got a long day ahead of me tomorrow," Leo said.

"Yes, you do," he agreed knowingly, finishing off his tea as well. He picked his book up in his hand and stood from the table. "I'll walk you to my room, Leo." He smirked, and Leo simply smiled and shook her head. She was quite surprised that she was getting along best with Draco Malfoy, of all people.

They made their way quietly up the stairs and down the hall, so not to disturb anyone on the upper floors and wake them. Leo had nearly forgotten how horribly dark the bedroom was until she returned. This time, Malfoy had followed her in and closed the door.

"Don't look so surprised, I'm not trying anything; I'm just sleeping on the couch," he said, taking off his outer robe. Leo nodded and looked around the room again.

"Decorate it yourself?" she asked. "It looks like the inside of a coffin."

"Well," was all he said. He walked to the closest drapery, opened it, and pulled it back to reveal a lividly pink wall, with what looked like a white unicorn and a bit of a rainbow. There looked to be tiny stars and hearts on the wall as well. Leo laughed so suddenly that she surprised even herself, and quickly covered her mouth.

"Compliments of Granger and Weasley, before they gave up the room to me," he said, sitting on the couch.

She sat down on the bed, so not to fall over laughing. Malfoy put his book and his shoes on the floor next to the couch, and began to get ready for sleep.

"And as clever as Hermione is, I'm sure there was nothing you could do to change the walls." Leo was still smiling broadly.

"You're pretty clever yourself," he said, leaning back on the couch and draping an arm on one side.

"Thanks," she said, looking out the window one more time. She had always loved the rain, and she attributed most of it to her home, where rain was a cause for celebration, not woe. But something just outside the window caught her eye. She stood from the bed, and her expression slack, walked slowly towards the window.

"What's the matter?" Malfoy asked.

"There's someone outside," Leo said quietly, and when she could clearly see, gasped in surprise. She took a step backwards, but Malfoy was right behind her, glaring out the window as well.

Outside were five hooded figures, all looking to be quite bewildered. Leo looked up at Malfoy's face, which was looking intently out the window at the Death Eaters.

"Well, this is different," he said distractedly.

Leo was having a hard time finding her breath, and her knees had the familiar tingle of weakness. One of the hooded figures was approaching the window, and lowered its hood. Leo suppressed a scream, and instead, found herself covering her mouth after a strange, strangled noise escaped. She had tried to take another step backwards, but instead had found herself firmly situated in Malfoy's arms. He had one hand on her elbow, the other on her upper arm, and their bodies were pressed together.

"Don't worry, he can't see us," he said quietly, though there seemed to be a trace of fear in his voice as well. Red eyes looked to be staring into the room, as if looking for something but seeing nothing. Voldemort's pale skin was stretched over his skull grotesquely, and Leo knew that none of the five books had described his horror, and the terror his mere appearance produced, accurately.

"Calm down," Malfoy said quietly. "Do you remember the principles of a Fidelius Charm?" he asked.

"Yes," Leo said softly, and quoted the book from memory, "Couldn't see you if they were staring in your window." She was breathing heavily, and could feel her own heart beating like mad within her chest.

"How can you all live like this?" she asked softly, scared that perhaps Voldemort could hear her. Malfoy sighed.

"We can't. Why do you think we got you? We needed help," he said, still holding her closely.

Another light seemed to go off in Leo's head, "Help?..." she murmured.


	3. Part 2

* * *

**Destiny Denied - Part Two  
by Merox**

* * *

The Reading Bean was a peculiar shop. Located in a small courtyard nook of the old downtown area, it was quite the university hang out. The 'who's who' among the intellectual crowd of the school could be found there on most afternoons, but especially Friday night and Saturday morning. It was a red brick building, though over the hundred or more years the building had stood, the color of the bricks had faded, and was no longer as bright. There was ivy crawling up the front wall, as the other three walls were connected to some other shop in the courtyard, making one large structure. It was two stories high, but also had a full basement, giving three levels of shopping space.

The basement was devoted entirely to children's literature, and there were play things down there as well. The reading area was decorated as a forest, and the children's chairs were all mushrooms or flowers or other plants found in a fairy's forest. There was a playhouse painted with the gray stones of a castle, and trees and dragons and other scenes from stories had been painted along the walls.

The top floor was dedicated entirely to non-fiction, reference and school books. Luckily, the school had put its own cashier on the top floor, specifically for when text books were purchased. There was also a large reading area, full of wooden tables and chairs for visiting students.

The coffee shop located within the store was on the first level, as was the cashier and the only public exit. The cashier's platform overlooked the rest of the first floor, and from behind the counter every aisle of books was visible. Along the walls the sections were located; Mystery to the left of the entrance, and political drama south of that. Self help was located along the back wall. Between the two, there was a spacious lounging area, full of overstuffed furniture and bean bags. Quite a few university students, and other teenagers, would lounge around, drinking their coffee and socializing and reading books. To the right of the lounging area, was another row of bookcases. There was an aisle devoted to religious books, and the rest of the area to the right of the coffee shop was fiction.

Lenore Lector, Leo to her friends, had been working there for nearly two years; since she herself had started University. Currently, she was leaning up against the counter, her nose pressed into the last few pages of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. She had received the British editions for Christmas. She was wearing her Reading Bean green apron, and had her long hair messily braided into two plaits. Her small black, rectangular reading glasses were slipping off the end of her nose, but she turned the page and kept frantically reading.

The bell above the entrance jingled. Leo, however, paid no attention. Soon the section of counter that allowed employees to get to the coffee machines lifted and closed, as a tall, very thin girl entered. She had darker skin and black eyes. Her shoulder length black hair was pulled into a loose ponytail by a white scrunchie, and she too was wearing her khaki work polo shirt and green apron.

"Leo!" she said, sounding exasperated. "Where were you yesterday?"

"Huh?" Leo asked distractedly, not even looking up from her pages.

"Where were you? I dropped you off at your house after work, but your mother called me yesterday morning, said you never came home. I told her, of course, that you had stayed the night at my apartment, so you owe me one, but where did you go?" she asked, leaning against the counter.

Leo was still reading furiously. "Leo!" the girl shouted.

She jumped a bit, and looked up from the words. "Sorry, Tawna. Thanks," she said, and looked at the pages again. Tawna was a tall, lanky girl, and so thin that she looked almost awkward at her height. Her arms were long, almost a bit too elongated, especially since she was so expressive and animated in life. Most of her height came from her legs, which were greatly appreciated by the male population of the University (though she was completely oblivious.) She had a beautiful face and smile, though again, she seemed to not quite realize it.

"So what's the story? Did you sneak out to meet a boy or something?" she asked, sounding hopeful. Leo had never paid much attention to boys, and Tawna was always trying to steer her in that direction. Tawna grabbed a large porcelain mug and began to fill it with coffee, then stepped towards the espresso machine.

"Yeah, I met someone interesting," she said, still engrossed in her book.

"So what's his name?" Tawna asked, setting a mocha in front of Leo.

"Huh?" Leo answered after thinking a bit, trying to seem distracted so she would not have to answer her friend. She succeeded, and Tawna sighed heavily.

"What are you doing, anyway?" she asked, leaning over and resting her head on her shoulder to see where she was in the book.

"Cramming," Leo answered, smiling slightly to herself.

"Oh, another trivia thing?" Tawna asked, and stepped away, grabbing herself another mug and filling it with hot water.

Leo chuckled, "Yeah, a big one."

Tawna ripped open a tea bag and dropped it into her mug, then two sugar cubes from a nearby dish. "Well, since you mysteriously disappeared yesterday, and left me to cover your shift all alone on a Friday, you missed the goodness of my news. Oh lucky me," Tawna said with smile, leaning against the counter again. "My chem Professor told me that I was doing well, and next year I get to wear a lab coat for O Chem." She smiled broadly.

"Good. That's great news Tawna," Leo said, flipping the page. Tawna was a Bio Chemistry major. She had offered to let Leo be her roommate, as they had known each other since High School, but Leo couldn't bring herself to move out of her house, she loved it too much.

A pair of teenage girls approached the counter. "Uh..." said the first one, looking up at the menu.

"I'll have a house cup, Quad ristretto Grande, no-whip half-caf mocha," said the second. Tawna moved to get it, but Leo stopped her.

"I got it," she said, still not looking up from her book. She moved her hand over the counter, grabbing the second to largest mug and taking it towards the espresso machine.

"I'll have a Caramel Macchiato," said the first girl.

"To go or house cup?" Leo asked, tapping the espresso machine lightly.

"Uh..." the girl said again. She looked to her friend.

"House cup, and she'll want it iced, and Venti." The second girl added, putting her purse on the counter.

"You wanna grab the tab, Tawna?" Leo asked, still not looking away from the Potter pages. She moved the mug under the chocolate pump, then put it on the counter, and grabbed a tall, thin glass for the iced caramel.

"Did you see that guy in the metaphysical section?" the first girl asked the second.

"Yeah, the tall blond? What a hottie! Probably a little old for us though," the second replied. Leo however, looked up from her book with a start. The espresso machine faced the aisle of the religion section of the store, and there, standing and looking at the metaphysical books, was Draco Malfoy. She slammed down her book, and didn't bother to lift the counter to let herself out, but instead, jumped over it and jogged to him.

He was wearing a long black leather coat, with relatively normal looking Muggle clothes underneath. He was looking through a book called "Magick for the Modern Day Witch" but had snapped it shut and put it back on the shelf. It seemed he was aware of her presence, but did not say anything.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed quietly.

"Did you know none of the witchcraft books actually have anything to do with Magic?" he asked, his eyes roaming casually over the books, and onto Leo.

"Can't you get into trouble for this?" she asked, folding her arms to hide the shiver that went down her spine when she met his eyes.

"The Ministry has more important things on its hands. Besides, Granger wanted me to keep an eye on you," he said, turning and facing her now. "Are you ready yet?"

"No, as soon as I got home I had to go to work!" Leo was exasperated and excited and tired. The coffee didn't help.

"I can see that. Cute," he said, picking up one of her braids and tossing it over her shoulder. Leo ignored him.

"I haven't even had a chance to talk to them yet," Leo said. Malfoy's expression changed at this however, and he leaned in a bit towards her.

"We only have until noon," he said, raising his eyebrows a bit for emphasis.

"I know, and I still don't know how I'm going to explain this to our parents." Leo sighed and looked towards her feet.

"Both of your sisters have long hair like you?" Malfoy asked, looking at a point above Leo's shoulder.

"Yes," she said, looking back up at him.

"Here they come," he said, nodding his head in their direction. Leo turned around to see Cathy and Anna coming in the door, their eyes roaming around the store for her.

"Oh... crap!" Leo growled slightly under her breath, to Malfoy's great amusement, and walked towards them.

"Where have you been?" Anna asked, looking up at Leo.

"Where did you go after you got home? I thought you went up to your room..." Cathy said. Her speaking voice was quite a lot smaller than Anna's.

"Um..." Leo turned and looked over her shoulder at Malfoy. He smirked slightly at her, and she turned back towards her sisters, only to find that their eyes had traveled as well. "Listen, we have a lot to talk about. Where's Tawna?" Leo asked, beginning to look around.

"Right here, why?" she asked, giving Leo as start as she was standing right behind her.

"Jeez, Tawna! You - oh never mind, where's Jim?" Leo asked, placing a hand on Anna's small shoulder.

"I don't know. Why?" Tawna asked.

"Well, uh - I won a vacation." Leo lied. It was the first thing she could think of.

"What?" Cathy asked, seeming as though she didn't quite believe her.

"I've, uh, won a vacation to the set of Goblet of Fire, and we need to leave... uh, now." Leo said, glancing over her shoulder at Malfoy again, who continued to watch with an aloof smirk on his face.

"What? Leo - how much coffee have you had today?" Cathy asked.

"Not enough; trust me." Leo shook her head. "Listen, we need to leave before noon, and-" but she was interrupted.

"Leo, it's already 11:50!" Cathy said.

"I already took your shift yesterday, I don't know if Jim will give you anymore time off after you disappeared yesterday..." Tawna said, speaking at the same time as Cathy.

"Well, then, I quit," Leo said, pulling off her green apron. "I need you three to come with me."

"I don't know Leo, I start classes Monday-" Cathy reasoned.

"We can't leave right now, Leo! We're right in the middle of our shift, and my chem. classes started two weeks ago, I still owe that Latin paper to Professor Pulvis, I can't afford to miss school-" Tawna added.

"I'll go with you Leo," Anna interrupted. The other three stared at her. Leo's face broke into a smile.

"Thanks, LeeLee," Leo said, stroking her blonde hair and using her pet name. She turned around and looked at Malfoy. "You see the creepy looking guy over there?"

"Yes," Anna answered.

"Go talk to him. Tell him you're my littlest sister, and that I'm convincing the other two and quitting my job," Leo instructed.

"You want me to talk to the creepy guy alone?" she asked, sneering a bit and raising one eyebrow.

"Don't worry, he's not as creepy as he looks," Leo smirked, and glanced at Malfoy again. Anna sighed and started towards him.

"You're really going to quit?" Tawna sounded sad.

"Look, Tawna, I promise this is worth it. Please just come with me. Please?" Leo begged. She then began to rack her brain for another quick lie, "I promise to have you both back in time for classes Monday." Cathy and Tawna exchanged wary glances.

"We're leaving for England this afternoon, and you'll have us back by Monday?" Tawna asked suspiciously.

"How long are we staying, two hours?" Cathy asked.

Leo realized the stupidity of promising a Monday morning return when she intended to, in fact, not come back for a very long time. "Listen, I know it sounds crazy, but I've never needed anything else from either of you this much in my entire life," Leo stressed. "Please, this isn't a joke, I need the both of you. I can explain once we're there, I swear."

Tawna and Cathy looked at each other for a long, doubtful moment. Leo knew that they were both hardcore Ravenclaws at heart, and it was hard trying to talk either of them into doing something impulsive. Especially when they both knew she was out-of-her-mind crazy and lying through her teeth.

"All right," Cathy sighed, and Tawna rolled her eyes and nodded.

Leo squealed and jumped up and down, clapping. She wrapped her arms around her sister, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Go talk to Mr. Creepy while Tawna and I go beg for time off! And make sure you tell him you're excited to go to the movie set."

Tawna and Cathy exchanged looks again. "Oh you guys... it's all real... I can't wait 'til you can see it." Leo sighed happily, then grabbed Tawna's wrist and dragged her towards the stairs. She heard Cathy muttering something about 'Too much coffee.'

Leo made her way to the large staircase that led downstairs to the children's section. That was where she had worked before she began working in the coffee bar. She would have preferred, though, to still work in the children's section. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, Leo cut through the lounging area, and then along the back wall towards a large blue door that had a sign that read 'Employees Only' in large white letters. She pushed it open, still holding Tawna firmly by the wrist, and entered her boss' office. He was a tall man, large around and relatively soft looking. His short brown hair was beginning to thin on the top, and his forehead was longer than it should have been. He didn't look up when the two girls entered.

"Jim, I'm quitting!" Leo announced, letting the office door close behind Tawna.

"No, you aren't," he replied, without ever looking up from his paperwork.

"Jim," Leo said with almost a whine, "I have to go to England today, and I won't be in for a while." Her tone had that of a spoiled child begging their father. Leo, however, had a large smile on her face, and pulled it off without sounding spoiled.

"How long?" he asked, turning to his next page.

"I'm not sure," Leo said. "Oh, and Tawna has to come with me." Tawna opened her mouth to protest the time, but Leo shushed her quickly.

"My best baristas?" he asked, sounding as though he wasn't going to let them have the time off, "I'd better call Marissa and Melody," he sighed. Leo squealed happily, releasing Tawna's hand to jump up and down. She bent over and kissed Jim on his bald head.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" she squealed again. Leo was excited and her voice was slightly louder than normal.

"Thanks Jim," Tawna said, a hint of amusement in her voice. She shook her head slightly at Leo as they made their way out of the office. Instead of going back into the children's section, however, they turned further into the Employee only hallway, and entered a blue locker room.

Leo pulled open her locker after quickly turning the combination, and took from it a long, dark blue robe and a box that held three paperback books, but looked like it had room for one more. She pulled the robe around her shoulders, then tossed her green Reading Bean Apron inside.

"What is that?" Tawna asked, as she too removed her apron and closed her locker. Leo smiled to herself as she fastened the robe closed.

"Mr. Creepy gave it to me," Leo said.

"You didn't join a cult did you?" Tawna asked, halfway joking. Leo laughed.

"No, no, it's a lot better," she said, putting a hand in her pocket. However, she felt something small, and pulled it out. It was a small black leather book with silver writing engraved on the front.

"Didn't you say we had to leave before noon?" Tawna asked, looking at a point above Leo's head.

"Yeah, why?" Leo asked, much more subdued now, and put the book back into her pocket.

"Well, we have two minutes then," Tawna answered.

"What?" Leo nearly shouted. She turned around frantically, and quickly found the clock on the wall. She grabbed Tawna's wrist again, and started out the room at a run.

"Bye Jim," Leo said as the passed his office, and left the 'Employee Only' area. Leo leapt over one of the unoccupied mushroom seats in the reading area, and started up the stairs, taking two at a time.

Once they reached the main floor, Leo released Tawna, ran towards the coffee bar, and leaning over the counter, pulled a small white 'closed' sign from a shelf. She set it on the counter by the register, and scooped up her Philosopher's Stone book, tucking it in its place in the box set. She jogged over to the small group in the metaphysical aisle, who were all looking at her with an entertained sort of expression, though Malfoy seemed the most amused.

"Are we ready?" he asked, smirking at Leo slightly, and there was a twinkle in his eye.

"The creepy guy is British?" Anna asked, looking at him quizzically. Leo chuckled, and Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her, though he wore a small, amused smirk on the corner of his mouth.

Leo was breathing heavily. "We're ready," she said with a small smile.

"Good, grab hold," he said, taking a dirty red shoelace from his pocket and handing the other end to Leo. She took it eagerly into her hand, and held her box of books close to her chest. Cathy, Tawna and Annabelle looked at Leo strangely.

"Grab the shoelace!" Leo instructed, and Anna promptly put her hand on it. Cathy looked at her in a peculiar way, but shifted her messenger bag on her shoulder, and also grabbed the shoelace.

"Are you sure you didn't join a cult?" Tawna asked.

"Tawna!" Leo shouted playfully, as she was wearing a large, giddy smile.

"Fine," Tawna sighed. She put her hand between Anna and Cathy's, and looked around the group. "Is there any particular reason we're holding a piece of garbage in the religious section?"

Anna smiled suddenly, and looked at Leo, catching her eye, but just then, there was a familiar tug behind their navels, and the whirl of color started. Leo closed her eyes to fight the now familiar sensation of a Portkey. She felt herself break into a huge smile when her feet set down on the floor, and she felt the air temperature drop. She began to laugh.

Leo opened her eyes and looked at her sisters and friend. They were all looking around with stunned expressions, and Cathy and Tawna had both turned strange shades of green, and their mouths were hanging open slightly.

"Granger! We're here," Malfoy shouted, turning towards the hall.

"It's Weasley!" Leo heard Hermione shout from down the hall. They were back in the Drawing Room, and she couldn't help but look around again. It was just as she had pictured it when she read the books; snakehead doorknobs and all. Leo was surprised to find she had actually missed it in the few hours she had been away. She caught Malfoy's eyes again, and he was wearing a mischievous smirk.

"Isn't it great guys?" Leo asked, looking at Anna, Tawna and Cathy. Tawna and Cathy simply stared back unblinkingly.

"Oh, I'm so glad you made the first Portkey. Dinner's ready, and we can explain everything to you then," Hermione said when she entered the room.

"Great, I'm starved," Leo announced, patting her stomach. She hadn't eaten anything since the Onion Soup the night before.

"Me too," Anna said. She stepped towards the door, and she and Leo looked back at Tawna and Cathy. "What's their problem?" she asked with a smile. Leo just shrugged, and she and Anna continued out of the room. Anna slipped her hand into Leo's, a common habit of all three sisters, to hold hands, and continued down the hall with a wide eyed, giddy expression. She was looking at the portraits with excitement, though wasn't saying anything. She too, seemed to know where the stairs to the kitchen were, and Leo did not have to lead her.

"Cool, huh?" Leo asked on the stairs. Anna turned towards her with sparkling eyes and a large smile.

"Completely," she answered. "So this is where you disappeared to yesterday?"

"Yep!" Leo answered with a large smile. They entered the kitchen, only to smell the wonderful dinner that awaited them. A house elf, which Leo assumed to be Dobby, was placing a basket full of freshly baked bread on the table in the center of the room. There was a large, juicy looking roast, surrounded by roasted potatoes. There were dishes full steaming vegetables, corn and green beans and carrots. Along with the bread, there was what looked like some sort of dessert. The house elf, with a very long, cartoon like pointy nose, left the basket of bread on the table and went back into the kitchen area.

"Take a seat, girls," Bill said, motioning to two seats between him and Malfoy. Malfoy looked up at Leo, seemingly surprised by the fact that she chose to sit next to him. She turned and looked at him, catching the surprised look on his face. He very quickly looked away from her, but she simply smiled at him and gently nudged him with her elbow.

"This is so cool," Anna said with a large smile.

"So you would be Annabelle, the youngest?" Bill asked. Anna turned and smiled largely at him.

"How ya doing Bill?" she asked excitedly. He smiled softly.

"Very well. It's nice to meet you," he said with a slight chuckle, reaching for the serving dishes.

"I was thinking the same thing! Pass the carrots, please," Anna said.

Hermione came in just then, leading Tawna and Cathy. Cathy was still looking shocked, but Tawna had passed into what looked like nausea. Cathy quickly took her seat, but continued to look around the room, especially at the faces of the people sitting at the table. Tawna was still standing in the doorway.

Dobby came in again, and happened to almost run into her. Tawna had read each of the Harry Potter books, and had seen the movies a few times. Mostly, however, she just listened to Leo and Cathy talk about them. She was nowhere near the fan that the Lector sisters were. Tawna looked down at Dobby, his long, pencil shaped nose, and his large tennis ball eyes. Perhaps it was his long feet, or his long ears that did her in.

"Aaaah!" she screamed, flinching slightly and taking a startled step in the other direction.

"Aaaaaaaah!" Dobby screamed back, likewise taking a step away from her. They looked at each other for a moment, before Tawna took her seat next to Cathy, and Dobby placed the two pitchers of water on the table.

"Sorry, Dobby, she's never seen a house elf before," Leo explained, scooping vegetables onto her plate. Dobby and Tawna looked at each other again, and Dobby did some sort of strange bow.

"Better not let her see the Hippogriff in the attic," Ron mumbled.

"Buckbeak is still here?" Anna asked excitedly.

"You didn't tell me he was still here!" Leo added, looking around the table.

"Geez, I shouldn't have said anything..." Ron mumbled again, though Ginny was chuckling slightly.

"We can go see him after dinner if you'd like," she said.

"Speaking of which, this looks delicious, Dobby, I didn't know you could cook so well," Leo said, feeling particularly talkative.

"Thank you Mrs., Dobby learned at his first Master's house," he said, and he and Malfoy exchanged strange glances, before Dobby scurried out of the room. Ron exchanged a look with Harry.

"Did he just call Lenore 'Mrs.'?" he asked.

"I think he said Miss-es... just plural, for some reason..." Malfoy corrected. He was now wearing a very calculative look.

Everyone had put food on their plates, and they were almost all eating, except for Cathy. She was looking around the table with a sad, confused sort of look. Leo watched her eyes roam from Kingsley and Bill, over her sisters and onto Malfoy. Then across the table to Ginny, Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"Where is everyone?" she asked, though a hint of sadness in her voice suggested she could guess. Everyone around the table grew quiet, and most of them looked down at their plates. Leo, however, looked first to Harry, to make sure he was not about to say anything stupid, then to Hermione to explain.

"We'll discuss things later," Leo finally said. Cathy looked a bit confused, but nodded, and looked at her plate. Leo could tell she was thinking about many things.

"So, Bill, how'd it work out with Fleur Delacour?" Anna asked, cutting her meat into bite size pieces. Bill chuckled appreciatively.

"It worked. And then it went out," he said, smiling at her.

"Good, I never liked her much anyway," Anna said. Bill laughed this time, and Ginny, Ron and Hermione seemed amused too. Leo smiled broadly. She wouldn't mind spending a great deal of time with these people. It was just as good as she had always imagined it to be. She just wished the circumstances could have been a bit better.

"How old are you?" Bill asked.

"Twelve," Anna answered matter of factly.

"You act a lot older than twelve," Bill smiled.

"I get that a lot," Anna said.

It seemed that dinner was going to continue on normally, but there was a tremendous bang upstairs, that rattled even their drinking glasses. Immediately, the Order members were on their feet, and Leo was close behind. She followed them up the kitchen stairs as they ran.

"What was that?" Ginny asked, and she and Harry checked the Drawing Room quickly. Leo lost them however, as she was following Hermione. She seemed to know exactly where to go, and wordlessly, took the steps to the second floor two at a time. She was halfway down the hall, and Ron was right behind her. She flung open a door and screamed, turning away. Ron caught her, and held her close as she began to cry. Leo stopped where she was, but she could see enough of the blood-splattered room to know what had happened.

Bill and Malfoy had just come up the stairs, with Anna not far behind. "What's wrong?" she asked, coming dangerously close to the door.

"Nothing for you to see," Bill said, turning around immediately and grabbing her around the waist, picking her up and carrying her away. She was a normal size for someone two or three years younger than her, so she was frequently being picked up and carried around, even against her will.

Harry and Ginny were just making it up the stairway. "Was it-" Harry started to ask, seeing everyone gathered around. Bill nodded, and Harry began to swear. Leo was watching Ginny's face though. She approached with a sad, but distant look on her face. She drew out her wand, and slowly walked into Neville's bedroom. She silently shut the door.

Leo was staring blankly at the closed door, but looked away. She felt a hand on her shoulder, "You all right?" Malfoy asked. Leo nodded silently. She looked up to Hermione, who was crying violently into Ron's chest, then to Ron, who was staring at the floor with his jaw set and his brow furrowed slightly.

"Come on," Malfoy said quietly. He put his other hand on Leo's shoulder, and guided her back down to the kitchen. Tawna and Cathy had remained in the basement, and their plates had likewise remained untouched. They looked up at them with wide eyes, having no idea but fearing the worst anyway. Anna was sitting next to Bill, looking smaller than usual.

"What was that?" Kingsley asked.

"Longbottom," Malfoy said, seeming annoyed, but Leo somehow knew that it was his expression of grief. Leo sat down next to Cathy, and automatically reached for her hand.

"Have they always been like that?" Leo asked. "Ginny and Harry I mean."

"Like what?" Kingsley asked.

"Only since James died," Bill answered in a very subdued voice.

Leo was slightly confused, "But it's been so long, and they never really knew him-"

"Not Harry's father, James - their son." Bill looked at Leo, conveying more with his eyes than his words. Leo looked away, feeling foolish, and like an intruder. She stuck her free hand in her pocket, and felt the small black book. She suddenly remembered the picture of James and Lily Potter, and the small boy sitting on Sirius Black's knee.

"I think I need to throw up," Tawna said in a slightly choked voice.

"Me too. I'll take you," Leo said quickly, standing and leading Tawna out of the basement. They quickly made their way up the stairs, and Leo opened the toilet door for her. Leo leaned against the wall, resting her head, and closing her eyes. She heard footsteps on the stairs, but wasn't surprised to see Malfoy emerge from the stairwell.

"Sure you're all right?" he asked. Leo opened her eyes and looked at him very calculatingly. He confused her to no end. Why would he, of all the people in this world, care about a Muggle? She opened her mouth to answer him, or perhaps ask him a question, but whatever she was thinking was suddenly shoved out of her mind, by a high, shrill scream.

Malfoy reached for his wand quickly, just as Tawna came stumbling out of the bathroom. Leo and Malfoy caught her together to keep all three of them from falling. In the bathroom, standing at the sink was a silver ghost, with long, waist length hair and large round eyes.

"Hello Draco," the ghost said in a wistful voice.

"Hello Luna." Malfoy looked to be just as startled as the rest of them.

"Where's Neville?" she asked. Malfoy and Leo exchanged glances.

"He killed himself a few minutes ago, Luna," he said.

"Oh, that is most upsetting," she replied, sounding saddened, and floated past them and down the hall. There was a clatter on the stairway, and the basement had emptied.

"What's wrong?" Kingsley asked, his wand ready.

"Luna's a ghost," Leo answered.

"I didn't know Grimmauld Place had any ghosts," Cathy said.

"Finney Park, and it didn't," Bill answered, tucking his wand into his robe.

"Someone better go tell Hermione," Kingsley said, likewise putting his wand away.

"I'll go," Leo said.

"I'll go with you, I have some things to do," Malfoy said.

Leo looked to Anna, who was still standing next to Bill after they had emerged from the stairs. "Take care of Cathy and Tawna, okay LeeLee?" Anna nodded, and grabbed Tawna's hand, holding it tightly.

"Come on," Malfoy said, placing a hand on Leo's shoulder briefly and leading her away. They went up the stairs to the second story, and saw the light of an occasional spell shine underneath the door. Leo could hear two female voices, and from what she could hear of the conversation, assumed it was Ginny and Luna. Malfoy then led her up a staircase at the end of the hallway, and up to the third floor. He knocked briefly on a door in the middle of the hall, then entered. Ron and Hermione were sitting on their bed, and looked scandalized that Malfoy had entered without permission, though their looks softened when they saw that Leo was with him.

"Excuse me, Headmistress, I need to floo to the castle," he said, going towards the fireplace and scooping something into his hand from a clay jar. Leo was too preoccupied watching someone use floo powder to deliver her news.

"Hogwarts, the Potions Dungeon!" Malfoy said loudly and clearly, and the flames went a bright shade of green. In a flash and a swirl of the flames, he was gone. When Leo finally looked away from the fireplace, she found Ron and Hermione looking at her expectantly. It seemed that they had not interrupted anything but conversation, but Leo still felt suddenly out of place.

"Luna's here," she managed to say.

"What?" Hermione asked, sitting up a bit straighter.

"She's a ghost, and she's down in Neville's room with Ginny." Leo folded her hands behind her back out of awkwardness. Hermione got out of bed quickly. Leo hadn't noticed until she stood that she had changed into purple pajamas. She grabbed a bathrobe from a nearby chair and put it on.

"Are you sure?" Hermione asked as she pulled her arms through the sleeves.

"I saw her myself," Leo answered.

"Your first ghost, how'd you like it?" Ron asked. Leo paused and looked at him in surprise. She had to stop and think for a moment, then her face spread into a slight smile.

"It was cool, all things considered," Leo answered. The fire erupted in noise again, and the flames were climbing high into the chimney flue. Malfoy's face suddenly appeared in the fire.

"You're back already?" Ron asked with what sounded like disappointment in his voice.

"You know I can't stay away from you, Weasley," Malfoy drawled. Leo smirked a bit. "How many do you think we'll need?"

"One for each Muggle, of course," Ron said.

"Obviously," Malfoy drawled again, this time with impatience.

"You might as well just bring enough for all of us then," Hermione said, and grabbed Leo's elbow. "Let's go."

There was a clinking of bottles, and Malfoy's hand had appeared, sticking a case that held ten potion vials through the fire and onto the bedroom floor. Leo looked over her shoulder at them, she had not yet seen a potion. However, she let Hermione lead her down the stairs and onto the second floor.

"Go ahead to bed, Lenore," she said. "We've expanded the room while you were gone, and with Kingsley's help we were able to procure another bed. I'm sorry, you'll have to share a bed with one of your sisters."

"That's more than fine, Hermione," Leo said. "I think we'd sleep on the floor, just to stay here." Leo smiled honestly at Hermione, catching her off guard. She blushed just a bit, and looked down slightly. She was quiet for a moment, and Leo knew exactly why. It must have been hard for Hermione to fathom that their terribly dark, wretched world would seem so attractive to outsiders. Leo hoped that Hermione might understand a little more than Ron or Malfoy, as she had come from a Muggle family. She knew the seduction of Magic.

"Malfoy will be in, in a moment, to give you a dreamless sleep potion. You've read about those, right?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, I know what they are," Leo said.

"Well, I think they would be best for tonight," Hermione sighed. They looked at each other for a moment, and wordlessly, Leo started towards the first floor. She was at the bottom of the stairs before she heard the bedroom door open.

Leo reached the first floor bedroom, and opened it slowly. She was slightly surprised to see Tawna and her sisters already waiting for her. "What's going on?" Cathy asked.

"Neville's..." Leo paused, and they all looked saddened. "He's killed himself. Luna was murdered yesterday, but she's here now as a ghost." Leo continued, "And Draco will be in to give us some sleeping potions."

"I'm not really tired, we've only been up for a few hours," Anna said. "But sleep sounds pretty good to me right now."

The bedroom door opened just then, and Malfoy stepped in, holding a sectioned wooden box, with eight of the vials left. He found Leo in the room immediately, and seemed to ignore the rest. "Potions for you four," he said, taking one delicately from the box and handing it to Leo.

"Here, Annabelle, you first," Leo said, motioning for her youngest sister.

"I'm sleeping with you," she said, pointing to the bed closest to the window.

"That's fine." Leo handed the potion to her. She slipped off her shoes quickly, and crawled onto the large bed.

"Oh, they took the couch out of here," Leo said, looking towards the corner of the enlarged room. She turned and met Malfoy's gaze.

"That's all right," he said, taking two more bottles from the case. "I'm sleeping in Mrs. Black's old room-"

"With Buckbeak? I mean, after what happened third year?" Anna asked. Malfoy looked at her, a little taken aback, seeming to forget for a moment that they all knew his past as if they had lived through it with him.

"No... I'll stay in my quarters at Hogwarts for tonight, but we've arranged for him to be taken back to Hogwarts at a later time," he explained, handing the final bottle to Leo. He looked at her intently. "Goodnight."

"Night," Leo answered back, forcing herself not to smile at him. He nodded, and the corners of his mouth pulled back into a slight smile. He let himself out of the room. Leo found herself sighing slightly, but did her best to quickly hide it from her sisters.

"That worked fast," Cathy said, motioning to Tawna, who had fallen back on the bed from her sitting position.

"Don't worry, she's skinny, we can move her," Leo said with a bit of a grin. After they had moved Tawna into a sleeping position, and Anna and Cathy had taken their potions, Leo removed her shoes and her blue robe. It had only been a few hours for them, but it had been a whole day for her. She sighed, and once she was in bed, swallowed her potion.

Surprising even to herself, Leo was the first to wake up the next morning. She looked to both sides, to see that Tawna and her sisters were still sleeping soundly. The small clock on the nightstand showed that nearly eleven hours had past, but without dreaming, it had felt like only moments.

After climbing out of bed, Leo put on her shoes to keep her feet warm, and pulled on her blue robe again. She made a mental note to ask for a clean one soon. As quietly as possible, so not to wake the three other sleeping tenants in her room, she closed the door and started into the hallway. She was walking slowly down the hall, and glanced up at the stairway, seeing a little boy scuttle across it. He had black hair and looked to be young, but most definitely out of the toddler stages.

Leo was so busy looking up the stairs at the little boy, that she hardly noticed she was about to walk into Draco Malfoy.

"Morning," he said briskly, snapping her attention to him. He had a bit of a mischievous grin on his face.

"Jeez! Good morning, Malfoy. You scared me," Leo said.

"I tend to do that," he said with a smirk. Leo laughed slightly and shook her head. She walked past him just a bit, turning into the bathroom.

"So who's the kid?" she asked. She looked at the toilet room's sink, and saw that there was a strangely shaped bottle with a strip of paper on it reading 'mouth potion' and a pump on top.

"What kid?" Malfoy asked, leaning in the doorway.

"Upstairs, had dark hair," Leo said, moving her hand towards the bottle. "This is like toothpaste, right?" she asked. He didn't look a bit confused at the Muggle terminology and nodded, pulling his wand out and conjuring a toothbrush for her.

"There aren't any children here, you better tell Granger what you saw." He was watching her very carefully while he spoke, and she had begun to brush her teeth. There was a long moment of silence, and Leo pretended to not notice Malfoy watching her attentively. She soon finished, and rinsed her mouth quickly.

"You don't think it's another ghost, do you?" Leo asked. "It looked a bit like James."

"It might be," was all he said.

Leo was thoughtful for a moment again, but then spoke, "Did you ever have any children, Malfoy?" she asked.

There was something between thoughtfulness and sadness in his eyes, but after a moment he answered her. "My second wife was expecting a son when she was murdered."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Leo said, and honestly felt it.

"No, it's all right now," he said, and the two of them started towards the basement for breakfast.

"If you don't mind me asking, she was Muggleborn, wasn't she?" Leo asked. Her curiosity for Malfoy seemed to intensify the more time she spent with him. He was nothing like the books had shown him to be, and the change in him was vividly apparent.

He smirked just a bit, "I guess you could say that."

When they entered the basement they saw that Kingsley was reading the Daily Prophet while he had his toast and tea. "Good morning, Minister. I didn't expect to see you here so early."

"Good morning, Professor Malfoy," was all he said in reply. He looked to be quite engrossed in his morning paper. The others began to file into the room for breakfast, all looking very groggy. Ron was the funniest in appearance though, his red hair was messy, and his eyes were half open. He yawned frequently, which only seemed to elongate his nose further.

Leo was among the first to finish, and decided to go to the Drawing Room, where she had left her books the night before. She was distracted however, by the Black Family Tapestry. She found herself standing in front of it, staring at it and taking in every detail. She had seen many fans online try to place the family on the tree, but they hadn't gotten it quite right. Narcissa Malfoy, for example, was actually Sirius' second cousin, making Draco Malfoy his third.

The tapestry was what looked like aged silver fabric. There had been green leaves embroidered on it, but their color too had faded. The bordering needlework was particularly breathtaking in detail. Leo's eyes followed the Celtic knot work, and she could only assume that the Black family was primarily Irish. Though she guessed there was a lot of French in them too, as the family motto was in that language.

She heard footsteps behind her, and turned around quickly, "Morning Hermione, I-" but she stopped dead, her mouth hanging open when she saw who was actually in the room with her.

He was a lot taller than she had imagined. His black hair was layered around his face but above his shoulders. It was a very flattering cut and Leo had seen it on many men half his age. He had aged gracefully, considering the life he had led, and Leo could see, even from across the room, a certain twinkle in his gray eyes. She stared at Sirius Black, not quite sure how or why he was in the room with her.

The door opened, and simultaneously Sirius vanished. "Hermione! Did you see him?" Leo asked frantically, making her way towards her.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Sirius! He was just in the room, there by the sofa." Leo pointed enthusiastically.

"Lenore..." Hermione seemed both confused and skeptical. "It's probably just a side effect of sleeping potion, being a Muggle," she trailed off.

"No! I saw James this morning, Ginny and Harry's son, but he was older than he was in the picture I've seen," Leo explained quickly.

"Listen, you've got to stop talking like this," Hermione instructed briskly. "If Harry hears you," but she said no more.

"Hermione, I know what I saw. They weren't ghosts like Luna. She was all silvery and kind of see through, Sirius and James were opaque, they looked like real people," Leo reasoned frantically.

"Well then where did they go?" Hermione asked, a tone in her voice that suggested she sounded disappointed in Leo. This hurt Leo, feeling somehow like she had let her down.

"I don't know," Leo admitted quietly, and decided to say no more on the subject.

Just then, the door to the Drawing Room opened again, and Anna stepped through. "I thought I'd find you two in here," she said, and Ginny and Cathy were not far behind. Their similarity in appearance was almost amusing.

"So why are we here, again?" Tawna asked as she entered the room. She seemed to be a lot more at ease, and closer to her old self.

"Oh, well, now would be a perfect time to explain everything to you," Hermione said. Anna and Cathy sat down on the couch, looking eagerly at Hermione. Ginny sat next to them, and so Tawna rested on the arm of the couch.

Hermione cleared her throat and looked at her attentive audience. Leo sat in one of the arm chairs, ready to hear as well, especially to shake the feeling of disappointment that she was feeling only a few moments ago. "Luna and I had been working on a theory, that perhaps something had gone wrong in our fate. We think that something happened a long time ago, that thwarted our destiny; that threw it off track."

"That's doesn't sound very fun," Anna said. Hermione looked at her, seeming to suppress a smirk. Just then, there was a strange gurgling sound, like that of water passing through a straw, and Luna's ghost drifted through the wall.

"Hello," she said almost dreamily, drifting next to Anna. Luna looked a little confused at the present, and looked to Leo, then Hermione. "Why are there so many Muggles?"

"Good question," Anna said, raising an eyebrow towards Leo.

"Oh," Leo blushed a bit, "Well, I needed your help."

"With what?" Cathy asked, sounding quite confused.

"Well, Hermione was asking me quite a few questions, and put on the spot like that, it was really very difficult for me to remember so much about the books. Especially since I hadn't read them since-" Leo cut herself off.

"Ya, I know," Anna said quickly, nodding her head. A look passed between Leo and Anna, and Hermione seemed quite baffled by it.

The door of the drawing room opened, and Harry, Ron and Malfoy stepped in. "We figured we might be missing something interesting," Ron explained. He and Harry stood behind the couch, while Malfoy crossed the room and stood next to Leo's chair.

"But how does that explain me?" Tawna asked suddenly. "Thought you'd just bring me along for the ride?" The corners of her mouth were threatening to spread into a grin, and Leo recognized in Tawna the same feelings she had had her first day in the wizarding world. The shock was beginning to wear off and the excitement was setting in.

"You're a chemist," Leo said. "It's very much like potions making, so I figured you could show Malfoy some of the simple Muggle sciences. _That_ would take the Death Eaters by surprise." Hermione gave Leo a strange look, and Malfoy glanced at her as well. "You know, a little nitroglycerin or some solid potassium..." Leo grinned naughtily.

"Wow, that would be mean!" Tawna said, sounding a little surprised. Then a looked passed behind her eyes, "Oh wait, Death Eaters, right."

"We want to see if we can find something in our past that will help us rescue Professors McGonagall and Trelawney," Hermione said. "That's why we decided to invite Lenore here, so that-"

"Wait, Voldemort has McGonagall and Trelawney?" Anna asked.

Hermione looked to Leo, "You didn't explain?"

"I didn't really have _time_, Mione," Leo said, and realized only moments after that she had used Ron's nickname for her. She looked quickly to her sisters to prevent any awkwardness. "Trelawney goes by JK Rowling to us lowly Muggles."

"No way!" Anna said excitedly.

"She's a witch?" Tawna asked.

"That explains a lot," Cathy mumbled. She was a lot more quiet than usual, which was saying something.

"Anyway, so Hermione was picking my brain for information about the books, and it gets pretty hard after four hours of reciting facts. It's always easier in discussion, and I didn't have any reference-" Leo's heart suddenly dropped. Her stomach leapt into her chest, pushing her lungs away so that she caught her breath, "Oh no."

"What?" Four voices demanded.

"I only brought the first four books!" Leo said, and now her surprise was turning into a chasm of sorrow. She couldn't bear the idea of letting them all down.

Cathy tutted suddenly. It was the first 'Cathy' noise that she had made since she arrived. She pointed to her denim messenger bag on the couch. "There's a copy in there, it's American though."

"You carry a copy of the fifth book around with you?" Tawna asked in disbelief. Leo smirked, quite relieved. Had she not been just as hardcore geek about Potter, she would have to tease Cathy about it. But as it was, Leo had moments when she out-dorked Cathy in the Potter realm. Especially when it came down to the Marauders.

Ron picked up her bag, seeming to think for some reason that it would be lightweight. Leo and Anna would have known better. Cathy was always carrying books around, that's why she carried such a large bag as a purse.

"What all do you have in there?" Ron asked, handing it to her.

"Purse things... and a few books," Cathy said. She pulled out her worn copy of 'Order of the Phoenix', and handed it to Leo. The jacket was no longer on the book, and the silver of the cover had turned to a darkened gray. The corners were frayed, and the metallic embossing on the spine had nearly all worn off.

"Holy puffskien, how many times have you read that?" Ron asked.

Anna immediately burst into mad giggles, "Holy puffskien?" Ron narrowed her eyes at her in great 'Ron' fashion. Leo held the copy of 'Order' in her lap, holding it anxiously. She had not read the book in over a year.

"Good, now we have copies of all five of the published books. Malfoy, why don't you take Tawna to Hogwarts so she can show you some Muggle chemistry," Hermione began, but didn't get the chance to finish. At her words, there was great commotion from the three Lector sisters.

"What?" Cathy said, jumping into an attentive posture.

"No fair!" Anna complained simultaneously.

"I want to go to Hogwarts!" Leo added greedily.

The rest of the witches and wizards in the room all seemed startled by this, though Ginny suppressed a snigger. Malfoy too, was quickly wearing an amused smirk.

"I think," Hermione started after a moment, "that we can arrange for you all to eventually see Hogwarts. But for now..."

"How soon?" Anna asked. "You still haven't shown me Buckbeak!"

"We can take care of that later," Hermione said, desperately trying to hide a chuckle that seemed very familiar to Leo. "But we need to get the day started, we haven't the time to waste."

"Well, do you have Muggle chemicals at Hogwarts?" Tawna asked, turning towards Malfoy. He nodded.

"We have a few. What we don't have I'm sure we can acquire later today," he answered. "Shall we?" he motioned towards the door. The three Lector sisters looked on with jealous eyes.

"Let's get started girls," Hermione said. Leo and Anna sighed longingly and turned towards their books, while the rest excused themselves to various work and tasks.

They had all been working long into the evening, with Hermione and Luna pointing things out periodically, or elaborating events. Dobby had arrived just past six o'clock to announce that dinner was finished. Hermione looked at her wristwatch and hastily announced that she had business to attend to at Hogwarts. Dobby escorted the Lectors down to the basement, where Kingsley was sitting, looking over the Evening Prophet and a few scrolls with official looking seals. However, there was no one else in the basement yet. The food however, was spread across the table.

Anna sat down and eagerly started filling her plate. "Good evening, Minister," she said, putting a spoonful of potatoes onto her plate.

"You catch on quickly, sprite. Good evening to you too," he said with a smile before going back into his paper. Anna smiled back at him before helping herself to tomato slices. There were sounds of footsteps on the stairs, and soon three Weasleys appeared.

"Who wants to see Buckbeak?" Bill asked. Anna jumped to her feet, and continued to bounce up and down.

"Me! Me! Me!" she cried, a rare moment in which she showed her age.

"I thought Buckbeak was at Hogwarts," Leo observed. Bill chuckled while he watched Anna's exuberance.

"No, we're taking him just now," Ron said.

"Then let's go," Cathy said, and was the first to start back up the stairs. Anna slipped her hand into Leo's, and begun pulling her up the stairs. Bill led the way, all the way to the second floor, at the end of the hall. Bill motioned for them to be quiet by putting his finger to his lips. He opened the door slowly, and in the corner, by the window, stood Buckbeak.

Anna's grip tightened on Leo's hand, and Leo fumbled to catch her breath. He was the size of a normal horse, but his upper body was that of a bird. It was hard to wrap her mind around what she was actually seeing. He eyed the girls as they stepped slowly into the room, pawing the floor with his front left talons. He was a steely gray, and his feathers shined from the light from the window.

"Anna, would you like to go first?" Bill asked.

"What, you mean actually touch him?" she sounded both excited and fearful. Bill nodded and grinned. Anna smiled back, and dropped Leo's hand. Ron and Ginny were standing back with Leo and Cathy.

"Buckbeak," Bill addressed the creature. "This is Anna." Bill put his hands on Anna's shoulders and brought her closer.

"Now remember to keep eye contact," Bill said quietly.

"I know," Anna said quickly. At this, Leo blinked repeatedly to keep her eyes hydrated before it was her turn. Anna stepped forward, keeping her eyes on Buckbeak. She bent over into a deep bow, letting one of her knees bend, but keeping her head upright and looking into Buckbeak's yellow eyes. After only a moment, his knee bent, and he had bowed in return. Anna smiled and glanced over her shoulders at her sisters. She turned back towards Buckbeak, and reached out her hand, patting him lightly on the top of the head.

Bill turned towards Cathy and Leo, "Who's next? Lenore?"

"Go ahead, Cathy," Leo said, recognizing the excitement in her little sister's eyes. Cathy stepped forward, and Anna stepped to the side. Cathy went into a profound bow as well, and Buckbeak also responded positively. Soon both girls were stroking the feathers on the back of his head. Leo stepped forward cautiously, slightly fearful of the magnificent creature, simply because of his size and novelty. She met his eye, and just as she was about to bow to him, he stepped forward, and nuzzled the side of her face with his. The three Weasleys had all taken a step forward, but suddenly seemed bewildered at Buckbeak's actions. Leo was taken by surprise as well, but knew better that to make any sudden movements.

"I've never seen him do that before," Ron observed. Leo reached up to pet him, and suddenly had the strangest feeling of déjà vu, like she had been around the animal before.

"That is strange," Ginny said, a calculating tone to her voice.

"That's so cool, Leo, he likes you," Anna said, still petting him, but having moved to his back, just above his wings.

"Cool? Don't you mean weird?" Leo chuckled, and as she said this, Buckbeak, nestled her again. The girls stood around him, stroking his feathers for almost two full minutes, before Anna's stomach gave a loud growl.

"Was that you?" Bill asked Anna. She nodded with a large grin. "Well then," he said, and with a wave of his wand, conjured a bucket full of dead fish. Cathy pulled a face at the smell, and Buckbeak abandoned the girls' attention for his supper.

"What say you to dinner?" Bill asked with a smile, and turned towards the door. Anna smiled wickedly and ran and jumped on his back. He buckled slightly from surprise, because surely it was not from her weight. He laughed appropriately and shifted her weight on him, giving her a proper piggy back ride on the way down to the basement.

Cathy and Leo exchanged chuckles on their way back, though they both kept looking over their shoulder to see Buckbeak one more time. By the time they reached the basement, Kingsley, Tonks and Harry were enjoying a nice dinner. Dobby had prepared three roasted chickens, potatoes, tomato slices and a variety of other vegetables. He had also baked fresh bread.

"Dobby, you've outdone yourself," Leo said to him as he brought out pitchers of water.

He smiled at her, and once he had set the pitchers on the table, bowed deeply to her again, and thanked her before scampering back off to the kitchen.

"Tonks!" Anna cried, hopping off of Bill's back. Tonks turned and looked quite startled as she counted up the Lectors.

"The Muggles are multiplying around here," she said. Anna's smile faded away and she gave her a calculating expression. Harry and Kingsley chuckled at this.

"They seem to be useful enough," Harry said. "Did you find anything substantial today?" Leo suddenly felt uneasy. Harry Potter, THE Harry Potter had asked her if she had helped him, and deep in her heart she knew they were getting nowhere.

"We got a lot done today, but no big breaks," Cathy said, sitting herself next to Bill. Anna, though she was still periodically flashing furtive glares at Tonks, had filled her plate and was busy eating. Leo sighed and sat down next to Cathy, at the end of the bench. There was still room on the other side of Kingsley, but Hermione, Malfoy and Tawna were still out at Hogwarts. Leo began to fill her plate, while Tonks and Kingsley discussed Ministry affairs. There was a flash from the fire, and soon whooshing sounds filled the basement as Tawna and Malfoy appeared in the fire place. Tawna looked slightly green and very dizzy, but Malfoy had his arm securely around her from behind, and he held on to her until they were out of the fire place. Leo was slightly taken aback at how comfortable Malfoy was around the four of them. She would never have imagined him to be so indifferent to Muggles, let alone spend the day with one. Tawna reached for the table, and sat down quickly, placing her between Tonks and Harry. Tonks pulled a face and brushed some of the soot of her arm that Tawna had gotten on her.

"Get any work done?" Leo asked, as Malfoy made his way around the table, and sat down next to Leo.

"Tons," Tawna said. "We've got an order placed for some liquid nitrogen; it should be here in a few days." She looked warily at the food, but didn't begin to fill her plate. Leo reached over and brushed away some of the soot from Malfoy's back and shoulders. He gave her a peculiar look, and Leo turned back to her plate, feeling her cheeks turning pink. Anna was smiling at her broadly, and Leo tried not to look at either of them.

"What's that?" Tonks asked.

"A liquid form of a gas, you should know that, your dad was a Muggle, wasn't he?" Anna asked viciously.

"Annabelle," Cathy tutted, and Leo didn't know whether it was to scold her or correct her. Leo would have corrected her herself, but Tonks beat her to it.

"He was a Muggle_born_, thankyouverymuch," Tonks said back testily. She eyed Anna up and down, before hastily finishing her meal in silence.

Leo ate quickly, still feeling quite embarrassed about trying to clean up Malfoy's robes. It didn't help that she could feel him periodically looking at her throughout her dinner. So she finished quickly, and went towards the drawing room. She was very much hoping to see Sirius again, but wouldn't mind have a few minutes alone to kick herself for humiliating herself in front of Malfoy. She began pacing back and forth in front of the Black tapestry. She had intended to observe it again, but had become too distracted with her bashfulness. Leo had never been very comfortable around boys; it seemed to be the one area in which she was shy. Her hands fumbled with her long hair, pulling it in front of her and running her fingers through it. As soon as she had the tiny tangles out, she would braid it. It was a nervous habit of hers.

She heard the door open and turned around, hoping to see Sirius again. However, it was Draco Malfoy. He had cleaned himself up somehow, and she figured it must have been with a charm of some sort. His silvery blonde hair was down and loose. It had been since Leo had first seen him in her bedroom a few nights ago, but she had been so affected by the Warner Brother's image of slimy, slick Draco Malfoy, that it took a bit of getting used to. Especially the part about how good looking he was. Pointy, yes, but still terribly attractive.

"Oh, stop smirking," she commanded, letting go of her hair. He raised an eyebrow playfully and smiled at her fully. He was quiet for a moment, looking her over. Leo was growing ever more uncomfortable with these bits of silence where he took her in with his eyes, and so blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"So did you use a Cleaning Charm or a Vanishing Charm to spiff up so quickly?" Leo asked. Malfoy began to come towards her, still smiling.

"Vanishing Charm," he answered simply, still observing her. At first it had been a heavy serving of creepy with a side dish of flattering, but the more he watched her, the more the creepiness faded. Leo was growing more and more uncomfortable in the situation, as she could feel something rather like sexual tension brewing between the two of them more than ever.

"Aren't you going to say something like, 'You're clever for a Muggle'?" Leo asked, just to break the silence. She felt like taking a step backwards, but forced herself not to.

"That's a little conceited, don't you think, Leo?" he asked, still grinning like a fool.

Leo huffed. "I am not conceited, I will have you know, Draco Malfoy," she said testily. He chuckled at this and came even closer. It puzzled her that he knew about her vanity button. She hated that people thought her arrogant or stuck-up, just because she was intelligent.

"Come now, don't you think I know you better than that?" he asked.

"Well, actually," Leo began matter-of-factly. He was smiling wickedly at her, and had reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder. Leo felt a strange tingling in her stomach at his touch, and she was very aware of the fact that it was infatuation. Something in the back of her mind told her that he knew it too.

"But, I'm a Muggle," she blurted out.

"Do you think I care?" he asked, looking her straight in the eye. His voice had dropped in pitch as well as volume. He put his other hand on her shoulder, and seemed to be leaning closer.

"Whoa, am I interrupting something?" Anna asked.

"No, just talking," Malfoy answered. "I'm sure you'd find it boring anyway." He turned away and greeted Bill and Cathy as they entered as well. Ginny and Tawna came in a few moments after that, and they all began idle chatter. Leo turned to study the tapestry, just to clear her head a bit, though she wasn't really doing any studying. Luna seemed to have joined discreetly, because Leo caught her silvery figure out of the corner of her eye.

"Hermione's back, she's eating now, but she mentioned wanting to jump right back into it," Ginny said.

"I'm game," Anna said, plopping down on the couch, right onto Bill's lap.

"Same here," Leo said, turning from the wall and sitting down on the middle cushion. The rest began to banter about jokingly, but Leo was caught up in thought. This time about the work that they had been doing with Hermione. Hermione and Luna had thought that they needed to review their past, to see if something had gone awry. If that thesis proved true, however, the only way to correct that would be to go back somehow, but that involved quite a bit of time-

"I'm back, let's get started," Hermione announced as she entered the drawing room. Bill picked Anna up with him as he stood, then set her back down on the couch. She giggled madly.

"That's my cue to leave then. Good night _ladies_," he said, looking pointedly at Malfoy. Malfoy drew his wand quickly and hexed him with the Tickling Charm. He managed to pull his own wand out and reverse it before Hermione got too crotchety. Anna laughed appropriately at this, and Leo and Cathy found themselves wearing large smiles. Malfoy sat himself down next to Leo, and she turned and looked at him, smiling broadly. She managed to inch just slightly closer. Hermione cleared her throat.

"All right, we very much need to get back to work before it gets too late," Hermione said testily, looking pointedly at Malfoy.

"Can't I stay to help?" Malfoy asked, draping an arm over the back of the couch, behind where Leo was sitting. She didn't seem to notice. Hermione, on the other hand, did.

"No, you're distracting my Muggle," she said, though by the look on her face, Leo could tell she was trying hard not to laugh. Malfoy and Leo exchanged smiles.

"I think she likes being distracted, Granger," Malfoy said, still smiling at her. Leo smiled back, more sheepishly than ever. She could feel her cheeks burning crimson, and looked away from Malfoy's gray eyes.

"Out!" Hermione said strictly, pointing at the door.

"Fine," he sighed, running a hand over Leo's hair quickly. "Goodnight girls, Night Leo," he said on his way out the door. They were all silent in awe, all except for Leo. She was still wearing a vague smile and looking towards the door. Her stomach felt as though it were home to a thousand caged butterflies, but at the same time, his smile and his touch felt all too familiar to her.

"I can't believe you like Malfoy," Cathy said disgustedly, watching the door carefully, making sure it was closed for a moment before she said anything.

"He doesn't seem all that bad, he might have changed," Anna reasoned.

"He was perfectly polite with me," Tawna added.

"I think Draco's a lot different than the books portrayed him," Leo said, feeling like she was defending the both of them. "His second wife must have done a lot for him. I think she was a Muggleborn."

"He married a Muggleborn?" Anna asked, just as surprised as Leo was when she found out.

"Malfoy's only been married once," Hermione said, looking quite confused.

"What?" Leo asked.

"He was married to Pansy Parkinson," Hermione answered, now giving Leo a calculating expression.

"Yeah, and how much _time_ have you spent on a 'Leo' basis with Draco Malfoy anyway?" Cathy asked. It seemed the question had been plaguing her.

"What?" Leo gasped, looking at Cathy and feeling an explosion of information in her head. They were becoming quite frequent at Grimmauld Place/Finney Park.

"I said," she started.

"Oh my god!" Leo shouted, jumping to her feet. Her head felt as if it might burst, as another sudden realization hit her. The past few days had suddenly all made sense, everything she had wondered about, everything that seemed wrong or peculiar; she suddenly knew why, and felt quite dizzy.

"What?" they all four asked in unison.

"I know what's going on!"


	4. Part 3

* * *

**Desting Denied - Part Three  
by Merox**

* * *

Hermione was staring at Leo, waiting for her to finish. Her sisters were waiting with baited breath as well, and Luna seemed mildly interested. Leo was staring at the ground, muttering things to herself, her eyes slightly widened. 

"What is it? Lenore, what have you figured out?" Hermione asked.

"Everything!" Leo said, and left the Drawing room at a bit of a jog. Somehow knowing where Malfoy would be, she took the stairs to the basement, and sure enough, found him sitting at the dining table, with his usual book and freshly poured cup of tea. He looked up at her, a smile in his eyes, and quickly back to his book again.

"So am I getting everything right this time?" she asked. Malfoy looked up at her quickly, shock in his expression, but looked back down at the pages. He sighed slightly and laid the book down. He looked back up at her, meeting her eyes. A long moment passed in silence before he took a breath, gathering her in with his eyes; appraising the situation now in front of him.

"You've never figured it out before," he said.

Leo was shaking with comprehension, and crossed the room to sit directly across from him. "How many times have you gone back?"

"This is the fourth time," he answered, his voice low and vulnerable sounding. It was not full of any of the reservation Leo had noticed in it before.

"Why did you keep going back?" she asked, folding her arms and leaning against the table. Malfoy looked at her for a moment, a sort of sadness behind his eyes.

"The wrong people kept dying," he said quietly.

Leo took a deep breath before going on. "We were married, weren't we?"

They simply looked at each other, before Malfoy nodded slightly, and finally looked away from her eyes. "That's why you know me so well, why you're so nice to me."

"Believe me, I wasn't the first time around," Malfoy said, closing his book slowly.

"I believe you," Leo smiled slightly. "How long has it been? How old are you really?"

"Thiry-five," Malfoy answered. Leo nodded, adding this to her memory, in case it would help her figure anything else out.

"How long were we married for?" Leo asked next.

"Almost three years," he said again, sadness hiding in his voice. He looked down into his teacup. Leo recognized this as a way of avoiding her eyes, as she had done the exact thing to him once. She didn't blame him; she was quiet as well for a moment. It was strange for her to be sitting across from someone she considered fictional for seven years, only to find out that, only days ago for him, she had been his wife, carrying his child. It was all so melodramatic, that Leo could hardly believe it and was waiting for the 'Days of Our Lives' theme to start up.

She was quiet for another moment, then outstretched her hand, putting it on top of his. "We have to tell Hermione," she said.

"I know. Let's go," he said quickly, standing. He left his tea and his reading on the table, and started for the stairs. He seemed quite eager to get it out into the open. Leo stood swiftly to follow him, and found herself a few paces behind, until they reached the hall outside the drawing room.

Malfoy turned towards her, a bit paler than usual, "Would you like to do most of the explaining?"

She looked at him for a moment, "Well, I can preface it, but I haven't figured everything out. You'll have to fill in the gaps." He nodded, and Leo wrapped her hand around the snake head door knob, twisting it open. She heard the murmur of conversation die as she entered. Nine faces watched them as they entered; Harry, Ron and Bill had joined the rest.

"I can explain what's going on," Leo said, then realized that actually, there wasn't that much that she had figured out, not that concerned the rest of them. She had squared away her own strange experiences in the Potterverse, but not the main problem.

"Well I was hoping so," Hermione said. She had been testy since her return from Hogwarts that evening. "That's why I asked the others to join us." Malfoy shut the door behind them, drawing attention to himself accidentally.

"Draco's been going back in time," Leo blurted out, not sure how to begin.

"What?" Cathy and Hermione asked in unison.

"It's true," he said.

"That's why he calls me Leo, because… though I've only known him for a few days, he's known me for…" she trailed off.

"Ten years," he answered.

"Holy sh-" Anna started, but Tawna clapped a hand over her mouth. Malfoy smirked at her a bit. So did Ron.

"Ten years? Malfoy… why?" Hermione asked.

"I used your theory. The first time you brought Leo here, things didn't turn out so well. And by not so well, I mean Potter was caught and murdered," Malfoy began. Harry raised his eyebrows at this, and Leo couldn't tell whether the reason was surprise or trepidation. Hermione looked engrossed with his explanation. "You had wanted to go back, but I stopped you."

"What do you mean? How did you-" she stumbled over her words.

"After Potter died, you three told the rest of us what you had been working on," he motioned towards Ginny, Luna and Hermione. "You had taken the Order to the Department of Mysteries and you were going to use the Time Source, but I stopped you."

"Why?" she asked.

"You were distraught, Granger, you were in no shape to go back and manipulate the past. That, and… no one was sure whether or not using the Time Source as a giant Time Turner was actually going to work. And well, I was more expendable then you were, _Headmistress_," Malfoy said. "So, you got it going, I pushed you out of the way and jumped in. I reckon you were quite flustered, but there was nothing you could do about it," there was a bit of a smirk on his face. Leo was glad that she had not had to do very much of the actual explaining.

"So that was the first time," he said. "The second time, things were a bit peachier, lasted a lot longer than the first time."

"How long was the first one?" Ron asked, sounding quite surprised that there was more than one trip.

"Almost two years," he said. "The second was three, and the last one was almost five."

"We were here for five years?" Anna asked.

"No, not you, just Leo," Malfoy said. "This is the first time she's ever brought in back up."

"No wonder it always took so much longer," Leo mumbled under her breath. Malfoy must have heard her, because he turned and smiled broadly at her. She blushed slightly and looked away.

"Moving on, the second time around, you died Granger. I figured since I had already done it once, I might as well go back and try it again. The third time-" he stopped suddenly and they all looked at him. Leo then understood why he had paused. She slipped her hand into his, which caused the entire room a great deal of surprise.

"Last time I died," Leo said. "And we were married."

"What?" Cathy and Tawna cried. Hermione and Ginny looked just as stunned. Anna, however, smiled.

"The second Muggleborn wife… that was you!" she said. Malfoy nodded.

"Everything suddenly made sense Hermione, when you told me that Draco had only been married once, I realized it. The pieces just all fell together," Leo said. "The night I got here, I noticed the wedding rings on all of you, even Malfoy. I also saw that he knew I saw his, and took it off afterwards. The way he talked about his second wife, and most importantly, the way he's changed. You know what he was like at school with you. That's the Draco Malfoy I thought I knew, but that's not the one I met. He was so completely polite and considerate towards me… and with all the other things, I just added it all up; I knew," Leo explained.

"Wait, if you're future Malfoy, where's present day Malfoy?" Harry asked.

"On Holiday in Marseilles, but under the Imperius Curse," he answered nonchalantly.

"You put yourself under Imperio?" Anna asked, sounding aghast. Malfoy cocked an eyebrow; he seemed greatly amused by Anna.

"Wasn't that hard, this is the third time doing it," Malfoy shrugged.

"Well then," Hermione sighed after a moment. "You can help us then, Malfoy, had we figured out what had gone wrong any of the other times?"

"No, not that I know of," he said. Leo suddenly realized that he had not let go of her hand since she had grabbed it. "You were getting stuck on the fifth and sixth year."

"Sixth year hasn't been released," Cathy said.

"Leo was here long enough for it to be published," Malfoy said simply.

"What if it didn't happen then?" Anna asked suddenly. "What if it was earlier?"

"What do you mean?" Cathy asked. "The end of fourth year?"

"No, you're still not thinking back far enough," Anna said.

"How far do we need to think?" Hermione asked, looking quite excited.

"What I mean to say is, maybe it was more than one thing," Anna said.

"I get it," Leo interrupted. "A chain of events; and the synergy of it has screwed it up so complexly that we haven't been able to untangle it."

"Exactly," Anna smiled, looking pleased with herself.

"Then let's see if we can find it," Hermione said, and with a wave of her wand, she conjured an enormous blackboard. Using her wand like a piece of chalk, she began to scribble down their ideas. "What are the things we know went wrong?"

"Losing the Burrow," Ginny said. Hermione wrote it quickly.

"Hagrid," Harry added. That went onto the board as well.

"How about Umbridge being at the school at all?" Anna suggested, and Hermione feverishly added that to their list. They began to toss out their ideas, all things that seemed either unpleasant or unfortunate.

"Sirius," Leo added quietly.

"What if we go so far as to say… Voldemort coming back at all?" Harry offered to the room. They were all quiet for a moment.

"That would mean that he would have had to die completely the first time," Cathy said.

"Even then, there are all the other things in your first three years… he would have found a way eventually," Anna said. Harry nodded slightly.

"That is not the point!" a male voice shouted.

"You listen here, Black," another raised voice returned. They all turned to see Severus Snape, and Sirius Black, standing behind the couch, deeply absorbed in a good row.

"Now you listen to me, Snivelus, just because I am stuck here, without my name cleared, does not mean-" Sirius started.

Snape rolled his eyes, "Not this again."

Sirius had pulled his wand, but Tawna mumbled, "Jeez, Snape was greasy."

Both Snape and Sirius halted their argument and turned and looked at the rest of the room as well. Everyone stood motionless, simply staring at the others. "They can see us," Leo muttered.

"You again," Sirius said, looking at Leo. She felt her heart leap into her throat. She _had_ seen him before in the Drawing Room, in the exact spot he was now. It had not been a hallucination after all, and now it had been proved.

"What is-" he started, but just as suddenly as he and Snape had appeared, they were gone again. Leo turned excitedly to Hermione.

"See? I did see him earlier, and I saw James on the second story landing!" Leo said.

"James?" Ginny asked, sitting up a bit straighter. Leo turned to her, finally dropping Malfoy's hand and going into her robe pocket. She pulled out the small black book and opened it to the page with Harry's parents, and Ginny's son.

"Look, he's what, three in this picture? When I saw him the other morning, he was much older than this, at least twice that size," Leo said, pointing to him. Harry had leaned over the couch to look at the picture, as if he was making sure that Sirius and his son were still there. Leo handed it to Ginny, who was looking curiously at it as well. Unfortunately, they were both still in the picture.

"Einstein," Tawna blurted out.

"What?" Ron asked.

"The Theory of Relativity," Tawna said.

Hermione gasped, and everyone looked at her, though she was looking pointedly at Tawna, "The Space/Time Continuum!" she said. Tawna burst into her trademark smile, and nodded excitedly.

"I understand now! Malfoy, you said you've gone back three times, right?" Hermione asked. He nodded. "And each jump back was a sizable amount?"

"Right, at least two years each time," he said.

"Think of time like a piece of fabric. Just because you are looking at, or living in, one part of the fabric, doesn't mean that the rest of the weave before and after don't exist too," Hermione explained. Everyone acknowledged silently, so she continued. "No one has ever traveled that far back, that many times before. There's no documentation on what could happen, in fact, I don't think anyone's ever bothered to give it a second thought. Yes, that must be it," Hermione was talking to herself now, more than the rest of them.

"Care to enlighten us, Granger?" Malfoy asked.

"Weasley," she said quickly, not even noticing. "You all understand that time is like cloth, right? Well, there is a fold in that cloth, or a rip, or a little of both, I'm not Einstein, so I'm not entirely sure, but something has happened to it. It's become so worn out from repetitive, extreme time travel, that the fabric is unraveling," she explained.

"I thought it was folded," Anna said.

"Bear with me," Hermione said sarcastically, and it was the first sarcasm Leo had heard from her. "That's why we just saw Sirius and Snape just now." She pulled up the bottom of her robe, revealing pants underneath, but stuck her finger through a button hole. "There's a tear in that fabric, maybe more than one, and that's why both parties could see each other."

"That would explain Buckbeak, too," Ginny said. Hermione seemed confused, but Leo knew precisely what she meant.

"Maybe because he's an animal, the rips have affected his memories," Leo said. She turned to Malfoy. "Did I ever meet Buckbeak on the last times?"

"Are you kidding?" he chuckled. "He loved you. You used to sneak him out and fly him on rainy days. It's the only time Granger would get mad at you."

"Wait a minute," Tawna said darkly. "Are you saying that the Space/Time Continuum has holes worn in it?"

"Basically, yes," Hermione sighed.

"That can't be good," Ginny said.

"No, definitely on the not good list," Leo said.

"That only means that we might have problems going back again, we might only have one more chance…" Hermione said ominously.

"Or what?" Harry asked. "I know there's an 'or else' at the end of that."

"Or, well…" she trailed off. "Theoretically… the Universe could collapse." There was a long moment of quiet, in which everyone found a nice piece of the floor or their neighbor's shoe to stare at open mouthed. Collapsing Universes had a tendency to awe.

"Then we better figure out what the hell went wrong originally," Malfoy said.

"I hate to admit it, but you're right," Hermione said. "Which means that we also need to figure out what went wrong the last times you went through Malfoy, or it could happen all again and ruin our chances." With her wand, Hermione turned and drew a line down the middle of the chalk board.

"Snape," Cathy said suddenly. Everyone turned and looked around the room, thinking perhaps that he had appeared again in another hole in Time. Leo, however, knew that Cathy was onto something. She knew her too well, and knew the look on her face meant something was going on.

"It was Snape, what went wrong; he did it," she said, her face lighting up. "The chain reaction of badness!" Cathy said, getting to her feet and walking towards the board. She motioned towards all the items on the list.

"Most of these moments, they're 'Oh no!' moments, right?" She asked, addressing her two sisters and Tawna. "When we read these, we got that feeling, right here," she said, holding her stomach. "These are the things that started something else, that made something else terrible. So what's the first moment when you felt that? The first bad thing that made you feel… well, hopeless, helpless… both."

Leo was reaching through her brain, thinking of all the things she wished had not happened in the books, and one was predominant, but only involved a black veil. "Come on guys, think. Snape!" Cathy cried.

Anna gasped, "When he outted Lupin!"

"Yes!" Cathy pointed excitedly at Anna, then turned towards her older sister. "Think of it, Leo! That was the first 'Oh no!' moment, wasn't it?"

"I think so," Leo answered, and now she was trying to imagine what would or wouldn't have happened if that event had not taken place.

"But if he hadn't done that, Lupin would have been there for our fourth year, which would mean that Harry wouldn't be in the Tri-Wizard Tournament," Hermione said.

"I'm sure Barty Jr. would have found a way regardless, but-" Cathy started.

"Lupin would have left anyway," Anna said. Cathy smiled and nodded in recognition. "Think of what he was like," Anna began. "He didn't drink that potion that night, and he could have hurt someone, most likely a student, so he would have removed himself from that situation in case something like that ever happened again."

"No one could guilt trip like Lupin," Harry added.

"Exactly!" Leo said, "He still would have resigned, but if his resignation was for personal reasons, not because of Snape letting it slip to his students, Lupin would have been able to come back later… maybe even-"

"Fifth year," the Lector sisters said in unison.

"No Umbridge," Harry said with a smirk, though Leo noticed that Malfoy wore a very different expression when they mentioned Umbridge around him.

Hermione was writing feverishly now on the blackboard. It was to continue like this for hours on into the night, until the clock in the drawing room chimed one hour past midnight. By then Ginny and the others had excused themselves, and Luna's ghost had floated out of the room with a dazed look on her face. Hermione decided then that it would be best to take a break for the evening, and get some well deserved sleep. She had then gone all the way upstairs, where Ron was undoubtedly already asleep. Anna had gently bullied Cathy into a piggy back ride to their room. And though it was only down the hall, she was asleep by the time they arrived. Leo was sure to pull back the covers, and tuck her in snuggly once Cathy had set her down. Tawna was the next to fall asleep, quickly removing her shoes and crawling into bed silently.

"Is it strange to feel so at home here?" Cathy asked Leo, long after the other two had fallen asleep and the lamps had been turned down. Leo paused before answering, having been facing that question since she arrived.

"I don't know," was all she said in reply. Within a few minutes, Cathy's breathing had become rhythmic and soft, but Leo was still wide awake; her brain reeling from the wealth of information tonight. She suddenly realized how dry her throat and mouth felt from the discussions of the evening, and decided to make her way, once more, down to the kitchen for a glass of water before tucking in.

Though she should have been used to it by now, she was surprised to see Malfoy still awake, reading the same book he had been every time she caught him. He glanced up at her and smiled, but this time it was a very different type of smile, maybe somehow more genuine than the ones preceding it.

"Burning the midnight oil?" she asked, sitting down next to him. He had his cup of tea, and a silver teapot on the table in front of him. Leo grabbed the pitcher of water still on the table from dinner, and Malfoy conjured a glass for her. She thanked him before she spoke again, "What are you reading?"

"Tatum West, very much the Ayn Rand of our world," he answered, showing her the spine of the book. Leo smiled.

"She's one of my favorite Muggle authors," she said. She didn't know exactly why she specified between Wizard and Muggle, but once she thought about it for a moment, Jo Rowling was actually a Witch, so perhaps the distinction did come in handy.

"I know, this is your favorite book.…" Malfoy paused, and the two exchanged glances. Leo was curtly reminded that she meant much more to him than she had originally thought. She also realized that she had put her hand on his forearm when she reached for the water. She was just thinking of removing her hand, though she had to force herself, when Malfoy spoke.

"You read it first, said it portrayed all of the social injustice in the Wizarding world, among blood purity and gender. You tried to make me read it for months, but…." He trailed off again into silence.

"You just started reading it, didn't you?" Leo asked, deciding not to take away her hand after all.

He smirked to the side, slightly bashful, and turned to look at her properly, "The day before I came for you." Leo reached up and pushed some of his champagne blond hair out of his eyes. Sitting this near to him, she could see the fine lines developing around his eyes, and see that his skin looked a bit more worn from stress than a younger man's did.

"You've changed so much," she said softly.

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes closed as her hand was still rested on his cheek. "How would you know?" he finally asked, slightly sarcastic. She somehow knew he was hiding his emotions again.

Leo sighed slightly, feeling both annoyed and endeared by this. "I can feel it," she said. They were both silent for another moment, before Malfoy opened his eyes and caught hers. He looked at her for a moment, before Leo felt the knot in her stomach grow unbearable.

"I'd better get to bed, I'm sure Hermione has plenty planned for me tomorrow," Leo said, holding onto her glass firmly, and standing from the bench.

"I'd better get some sleep as well," he said. "I'll walk you to your room." There wasn't much escorting, as Leo was walking in front of him most of the time, contemplating her feelings and the strange onset of them. She kept bouncing between a familiar comfort and an intense infatuation, and it was no good for her heart or thoughts. Or her stomach, for that matter.

Within only moments she was back outside the room where her two younger sisters were sleeping. She turned around to say goodnight to him properly, but found him smirking slightly. Somehow it gave her the courage to reach up quickly and kiss him on the cheek.

"Good night Draco," she said, and turned around to enter the bedroom quickly, as she could feel her cheeks becoming quite red. He grabbed her arm and turned her around, looking at her intently. He looked at her for only a moment, but Leo felt her stomach take flight again. His grey eyes flickered down to her lips, and she knew he was about to kiss her. She hoped strongly that he didn't, for fear she might do something embarrassing, like kiss terribly, or drop her glass of water, or wet herself.

"Good night Leo," he said in reply, and kissed her quickly on the forehead before turning and nearly running up the stairs. Leo stood outside her door for a moment, hands shaking, before she finally let herself into the room. She was quite pleased with herself as she finished her drink and climbed into bed. Somehow, though she was not yet twenty, and under experienced, she had managed to make a hardened, thirty five year old man act like a teenage girl. She sighed happily, savoring the kiss on her forehead in her own juvenile way, and fell asleep with a smile on her face.

Not surprisingly, Leo was the last to wake up. She tried to look at the clock on the bed side table, but it had four hands and what looked like the twelve zodiac symbols. She wished that another familiar feeling would help her somehow remember how to read this kind of clock, but to no avail.

She slowly got out of bed and decided to head to the drawing room, where she was sure she would find her sisters and Hermione. Sure enough, as soon as she came near to the drawing room, she heard the familiar cadence of her sisters' voices.

"Has she really only read our fifth year once?" Hermione asked, sounding slightly frightened of the answer.

Anna and Cathy were both silent for a moment before an answer was given. "She couldn't read it again," Cathy finally said.

"Not after what happened at the end. Her book was a mess, the last seventy-five pages or so, were all wrinkly from crying on it. She took it pretty hard," Anna said.

"She cried?" Hermione asked.

"Loads," Cathy answered. "We would find her just sitting alone, crying."

"Or we'd be watching a movie, and she would start to cry when it wasn't sad at all. Usually if it was funny," Anna explained. "We would ask here what was wrong, and she would just say-"

"Sirius," the sisters said in unison. Leo felt a heaviness on her chest again. In the fourteen months since she had read the book, she had managed to finally move on. It was only since Christmas that she had been free from the random attacks of emotion for Sirius. She had felt foolish enough, becoming so worked up over someone she thought to be fictional, but now, to have the sorrow heavy in her stomach again, she felt even more foolish because he was real. It was worse that she had never really known him.

Without waiting to overhear anymore of their conversation, and feeling full fledged mourning sweeping over her again, she decided to head down to the kitchen. She was sure no one would be there, and she was right. The only person in the kitchen was Dobby, clearing the breakfast dishes. He bowed deeply when he saw her enter.

"Good morning Mrs.," he said, bowing so low that his nose almost touched the ground again. Leo smiled slightly, wondering if the same thing that happened to Buckbeak because of the time travel had happened to Dobby as well.

"Good morning, Dobby," she smiled, sitting at the table.

"Would Mrs. like some breakfast?" he asked.

"Sure, but do you have any coffee?" she asked. He nodded, and after another bow, scampered into the kitchen. He reappeared soon, and set down a tray, with a mug full of black coffee, and sugar and cream. He disappeared into the kitchen again, and Leo prepared for her caffeine fix. Working at a coffee shop had turned her into a java junkie. She was looking into her cup, holding it with both of her hands, but seeing in her mind's eye the grey eyes and dark, feathered hair of Sirius Black. It was so strange to her to be feeling the way she had felt the summer before, when she had read of his death. To know that it had actually happened made it hurt again, and hurt more.

While her thoughts had been preoccupied by Sirius, once again, and her coffee cup had been warming her hands, Dobby had set down a plate of eggs and potatoes on the table in front of her. She looked up, surprised at how much time had slipped away as her thoughts wandered.

"Oh, thank you so much, Dobby," she said, not realizing that she was actually hungry. He also set down a fork and napkin, and she eagerly began to eat her breakfast. He started for the kitchen again, and Leo called him back.

"Do you know what happened to Kreacher?" Leo asked. Her thoughts had naturally turned to him from Sirius, and she had a few questions still plaguing her from the release of book five. A very different, almost angry expression crossed Dobby's face.

"Dobby did not like Kreacher at all. Kreacher serves my old mistress now," he said begrudgingly. Leo raised an eyebrow.

"Kreacher works for Narcissa Malfoy?" she asked. Dobby nodded. He bowed slightly and started to leave again, but Leo called him back once more.

"Dobby, did Dumbledore hire you after Kreacher left?" she asked.

"No, Mrs., Dobby came on his own to help defeat the Dark Lord," he said. Leo smiled at him, ignoring her breakfast for the moment.

"You're so noble, Dobby," Leo said. He thanked her and bowed again, this time nearly putting his forehead on the floor. "I need to ask you though… when you arrived, did you clean out Kreacher's quarters?"

Another aggravated look arrived on Dobby's big-eyed face. He seemed to be getting properly mad now. "Kreacher was a terrible house elf!" he cried. "Potions things all over, as if he was a suitable wizard."

Leo could feel herself sit up a bit straighter, it was as though a chill had just gone down her spine. She was terribly afraid that her suspicions and theories from her Muggle days of speculation were true. "Do you remember what ingredients he had, Dobby? It wasn't sneezewort, lovage or scurvy-grass, was it?"

"How did Mrs. know what Kreacher kept?" he asked. Leo felt like she might burst, but not from satisfaction or the onset of knowledge.

"That's all, Dobby, thank you for breakfast," she said, suddenly feeling not hungry at all. Dobby excused himself and bowed his way into the kitchen. Leo hung her head, feeling a weight in the bottom of her stomach. She had always hated Sirius's death, but she had only suspected foul play, she had never expected a conniving house elf to have made up either a Confusing or Befuddlement Draught. Leo pushed her coffee away from her as she worked out the details in her mind. She had shared her theory once with Cathy, but had not mentioned it since. Though Sirius had been house bound, and was worried about Harry, his actions before and during the Department of Mysteries incident were uncharacteristic. She had always thought it strange that Rowling, or rather, Trelawney, had mentioned only that specific Potions lesson in the entire fifth book. Leo knew Sirius would not have been so careless to taunt Bellatrix during their duel, and now, knowing that her suspicions had indeed been fact, she felt even worse. It was bad enough that Sirius had been so carelessly murdered during a duel, but to add to it that he had been, in essence, poisoned, was unbearable.

Leo poked at her breakfast for a few minutes, mulling her thoughts. She finally pushed it away, and returned to her room to dress. She saw that Dobby had set folded laundry on the beds for them all; many colors of robes for each of them. This cheered her up slightly, as she was ever so grateful to get out of her blue robe, which was beginning to carry a strong odor. She looked through them all, but finally chose a green robe, with beads and embroidery embellishments around the closures and neckline. Leo ran her fingers through her hair, trying her best to tame it, before she started out of the room. She was just approaching the Drawing room, when she heard the pop of an Apparation inside.

"Kingsley, what's the-" Hermione started, but she was interrupted.

"There's a traitor in the Order, we're no longer safe here," he said frantically. Leo stepped into the Drawing room, her eyes wide. "Voldemort knows our location, we _must_ go to Hogwarts immediately. I'm sorry I can't say more at the moment, be safe, and I'll join you at the school later," he said.

"You be safe too," Anna said calmly, though Leo could hear the underlying panic.

"Thanks, Sprite," he said, and ruffled her hair before Disapparating. Hermione looked up at Leo, asking for her help silently.

"I'll go look for people in the kitchen," Leo said. Hermione nodded, and they both started out of the Drawing Room at a jog. Leo, however, turned on her heel quickly, and pointed a stern finger at her younger two sisters. "You stay here, don't – move," she commanded. They both nodded, their faces growing pale.

Leo took the steps two at a time, and reached the basement quickly. She didn't see anyone immediately. "Hello?" she called. "Is anyone down here? Dobby?"

"Yes Mrs.?" he asked, emerging from the kitchen.

"We're not safe here, anymore, the Dark Lord knows where we are, we need to go to the school immediately. Is there anyone else down here?" Leo asked, too concerned to realize that she had referred to Voldemort as 'the Dark Lord'.

"No, Mrs., there is no one else down here but Dobby," he said, his eyes the biggest Leo had seen them over the past few days.

Leo nodded. "All right then, we're meeting at Hogwarts, go as soon as you can," she said, and ran back up the stairs. She was just rounding the corner into the Hallway, when she came crashing into Malfoy.

"Careful," he said hastily, catching her before she fell backwards. He was holding onto her arms. "We need to go, are you ready?" Leo nodded wordlessly, and they started back towards the Drawing Room. Cathy, Tawna and Anna were all still waiting in the places Leo had left them, but they all looked much more nervous than they had only minutes ago. Hermione was not far behind, with Bill and Ron in tow.

"All right, we can only floo to Hogwarts through the Master Fireplace upstairs. Tawna, you remember?" she asked. Tawna nodded feverishly. "All right, you go, Ron will take you." Hermione turned towards Anna and Cathy, "Muggles cannot floo on their own, they must be accompanied by a Witch or Wizard. Malfoy, I assume you'll take Lenore?" she asked.

"Of course," he said, though there was no trace of sarcasm or cynicism in his voice like Leo would have thought there to be.

"Let's go then," Anna said, grabbing Bill's hand and leading him out of the room. Cathy followed quickly, and the other three were not far behind.

The entire group was running up the stairs, taking as many as possible at a time, until they were in Master Bedroom. There was a flash of light, and they all realized that Ron and Tawna had just been through.

"Come on," Malfoy said, grabbing Leo's hand. However, she jerked it away.

"No, my sister's go first," she said. Bill didn't wait another moment, and scooped Anna up into his arms. He shifted her weight to one arm and grabbed a handful of floo powder.

"I've just thought of something, I'll be right back," Malfoy whispered, and started back out of the room, passing Harry and Ginny on his way.

"Is everyone here?" Ginny asked, starting to take a step back.

"They've gone," was all Hermione said, as she and Cathy waited for Bill and Anna to clear the fireplace. The flames calmed quickly, and Hermione and Cathy went next. Ginny stepped up to the mantel after that, grabbing a handful of floo powder. As she was going, Harry outstretched a hand towards Leo.

"Let's get you out of here," he said, his green eyes boring into hers.

"No… that's all right," she managed to say. "I'll wait for Draco." Harry nodded, and stepped towards the fireplace. He reached his hands towards the floo jar, but didn't put it in quite yet.

"I'll wait too," he said. Within moments, they heard Malfoy running up the stairs. He looked slightly winded when he arrived, and had ink smudges on his fingers.

"Did everyone else go through all right?" he asked.

"Yes… it's just the three of us now," Harry answered. Though the situation was terribly dire, Leo couldn't help but think that Harry must have said that in horribly tacky smut fics just before the juicy scenes happened. She hated it when her mind wandered at the most inappropriate times.

"Hogwarts, the Headmaster's office," Harry said, and followed everyone else to the school. Leo suddenly realized that she would finally be arriving at Hogwarts. She only wished it could have been for better reasons.

"Our turn, love," Malfoy said, wrapping and arm around Leo's waist and dragging her towards the fireplace. Leo heard the casualness in his voice as he called her by a pet name, and reminded herself quickly of the time travel.

"Flooing is quite dizzying, but unfortunately the most basic method of unplanned travel… so, I've got to hold on tightly to you, and try not to move too much. You might want to hold your breath, and keep your eyes closed," Malfoy explained hurriedly.

"I know," she said in reply, and waited as he reached up and grabbed the powder. He threw it into the flames, which became an emerald green color, and stepped in. He outstretched a hand to Leo. She looked at the flames hesitantly, and reminded herself that it wouldn't really burn her. She took a deep breath, and stepped in quickly, wrapping her arms around Malfoy's neck. He put his arms around her, and hooked his fists together in the small of her back.

"Hogwarts, Headmaster's office," she heard Malfoy say loudly. The spinning began immediately, and she tightened her grip on him. It was warm in the floo network, and there was a massively strong wind. To be honest, she felt as though she was falling, and spinning, which was very unpleasant for her stomach. Leo wished that she had thought to tie back her hair in someway, as she knew it was becoming full of tangles and soot.

Suddenly, there was a pair of icy cold hands around Leo's waist, and she was jerked backwards. Malfoy was caught by surprise, but instead of letting go, held on more tightly, pulling her towards him. This caused the two of them to hit a wall they could not see, and bounce back off of it into another one. There was another hard tug around Leo's middle and she was pulled back, the back of her skull coming into contact with something hard and sharp edged. There was instant blinding pain, and she saw little red dots floating in front of her eyes. Her arms became limp and with one more hard pull and another knock to her head, this time to the side of her face, she was pulled away from Malfoy, and felt herself tumble onto a cold, hard floor.

She opened her eyes slowly and couldn't see right away. Beyond the blackness and the red spots at the edges of her sight, anyway. She was still lying on the floor, and she could feel something wet and sticky pooling underneath her head. A grunt escaped her lips, not so much out of pain or discomfort, but out of annoyance at the inconvenience of a severe concussion.

"Look what we have here. Chain her up, boys," an icy voice said, and without needing to see him, she knew to whom it belonged. Both of her arms were seized, and she felt herself being dragged along what she realized was a stone floor. Her arms were both brought above her head, and her wrists clamped into cold metal cuffs.

"You would be Lenore, yes? The little piece of Muggle trash I've been hearing so much about?" Leo's sight was coming back, and she could see Voldemort's red eyes.

"You would be Voldemort, that story book villain I've read so much about. Shouldn't you be twisting a mustache and tying me to railroad tracks?" Leo asked. She figured she was going to be killed anyway, she might as well get in a few good jabs to boost her ego before she went. It seemed to have worked, because the smug little smirk he had been wearing on his nose-less face had completely disappeared.

"_Crucio_," he said bitterly. Leo knew in that moment that Trelawney had never been under the Cruciatus Curse before she wrote the books. It was indescribable pain. Pure pain. Leo could hardly keep her thoughts about her, and was trying desperately to remember what Harry had done under the curse. The trouble was that the sound of her own screams kept interrupting her thoughts. Then, suddenly, it stopped.

Leo fought to catch her breath, and almost regained it, though the pain in the back of her head had been amplified, and she felt something wet trickling down her neck. Harry had been right, Leo thought as she tried labouredly to breathe though her ribs were resentful; the Dark Lord didn't need anything else to cause pain, the Cruciatus Curse worked just fine.

"How are you feeling, dear? A little more cooperative?" Voldemort asked.

"In order to cooperate you'd have to proposition me first," Leo snapped. It was most likely her tone that had earned her another round of _Crucio_. But at least the score was Leo-2, Voldemort-0. Well, except for the whole 'being tortured' thing.

Voldemort was looking at her expectantly now, and Leo hadn't realized that severe pain caused you to both shiver and sweat profusely, simultaneously. He was simply staring at her, smirking slightly, and Leo realized that the only thing he could possibly want from her was information on what they had all discovered. As soon as she began to think this, Voldemort smiled ever so slightly.

"Go on," he said, kneeling down in front of her. Leo closed her eyes and began to immediately think of nothing but a brick wall. She focused on it intently, picturing every detail of the bricks, the white mortar between them, and the grainy texture. She could clearly see the bricks' staggering patterns.

She felt a hard slap across her face. This succeeded in jarring her thoughts, but she did not begin to immediately think of their accomplishments. Instead she was just focused on the fact that she had been slapped by Lord Voldemort. She thought of maybe chuckling at this, but when she opened her eyes again, and saw his cold glare, all thoughts of more mocking left her head.

"I'm not in an accommodating mood, girl. If you don't tell me what I want to know, I'll simply kill you and take your little sister. Twelve year olds succumb easier to torture, and know that I speak from experience when I tell you this," he said. It was all very methodical and detached, with absolutely no hint of passion or expression in his voice. He was the most frightening sort of villain, and Trelawney had not captured that in the books, not his true essence. He was the kind of villain with no conviction. It was not whether there were distinctions of right and wrong, or that he really got pleasure from it. He simply did it; his only goal to reinforce his own superiority.

"Leave my sisters alone," Leo said, trying to sound as threatening as possible. She had only succeeded in keeping her voice from shaking.

He was quiet again, and Leo closed her eyes, quickly remembering to think of the brick wall. This time however, there was a door in the center of it. The door began to open, and inside Leo could see the Drawing room, and all of them gathered around the blackboards, with their notes and the books spread out on the floor. She realized what Voldemort was doing, and snapped the door shut, imagining a bolt on it.

Then the door became glass. Leo imagined large steel bars over it, and saw herself rise from the couch inside the Drawing room, and pull shut a shade, stretching it nearly to the floor. She bent down and tied it to a hook on the bottom of the door. Leo heard a real sigh, and could feel Voldemort stand up and move away. Before she could open her eyes and gather the surrounding visually again, she felt her body screaming underneath Voldemort's wand. She was under it the longest this time, her back arching against the post she was chained to. Her legs were struggling against the stone floor, trying to move away from the pain.

Once it finally stopped, Leo found her neck completely limp, in fact, it was hard to feel any of her body, and she wondered briefly if she had died. But she soon felt herself breathing, and realized it was just that her vision was nearly completely blacked out. The last thing to return was her hearing, buzzing with the sounds of the voices of the Death Eaters, and the excruciating pain in the back of her skull.

"No, there's no use, she's too stubborn. We might as well just kill her and take the school. There's little time left now, she's not important," she heard Voldemort say. Leo muttered, it was all she could muster.

"What?" Voldemort turned his back on his followers and approached Leo again.

"Why didn't you just take Harry? We all flooed, why grab me? Why not just grab Harry and be done with it?" Leo asked resentfully.

Voldemort began to laugh at her. However, it was not the high pitched, cold laughter that was described in the books that Leo could never imagine. It was cold all right, but dripping with mocking and malice. Low pitched and deriding, it was easily one of the most frightening sounds Leo had ever heard.

"My girl, I've waited twenty four years to kill the little bastard, I can wait another hour," was all he said, and deliberately avoided answering her question. He stood, still with a smile on his face, and nonchalantly said to Bellatrix Lestrange, "Kill her."

She grinned and stepped forward, pulling her wand from her black hooded cloak. Leo struggled, trying to inch farther away from Bellatrix as she approached. She was raising her wand. "_Avada_-" Leo turned her head and flinched, waiting for the rest of the curse.

"Wait," Voldemort said. "I've got a better idea. Go fetch… it," he said. Bellatrix, who had looked confused and a bit disappointed when she had been stopped, was now smiling more maniacally than before. She left the room quickly and so did Voldemort. Leo could still hear them talking in undertones outside in the hall, but could not make out what they were saying.

Movement caught her eye, and she turned her head to look to the side. She had been too preoccupied with her own torture to realize that there were two other people in the room. Two other women to be precise. Leo forced her eyes to focus on the moving one, the one trying to get her attention.

Leo licked her lips when she was finally able to make out the woman's face, "Mrs. Ro- …Trelawney?" she asked. The blond woman's thinning, dirty face cracked into a smile.

"I knew you would come and save us Annabelle, I saw it," she said weakly, almost so quietly that Leo could barely hear her. She looked at her for a moment, and had thought to correct her, but recognized the other, emaciated woman. She had black hair, with two streaks of silver, one at each temple. Her face was bruised and dirty as well, and she had dried blood running out of her nose. She was currently unconscious, and by her gaunt face, Leo could tell she had been here a while. They knew that McGonagall had not yet been killed because she had not appeared in Harry's book, but Leo silently wished that she had been; it would have been easier on her.

The door opened again, and two nameless, non-descript Death Eaters entered the room, both holding potion vials. The thinner of the two stepped towards Leo, carrying a vial full of a black liquid. What struck Leo about it was the color. It was as if it were glowing. There looked to be purple light shining off of it, but she knew it was impossible. Another pair of Death Eaters approached, splitting again and the other bottle arriving in front of McGonagall. Leo began to struggle away, trying to move around the post. However, the empty handed Death Eater grabbed her roughly, tilting her head back. The black potion approached, and Leo clamped her mouth shut, clenching her jaw as tightly as possible. The Death Eater behind her pinched her nose shut, but Leo was determined not to submit to this trick, and would rather pass out from lack of oxygen. However, they quickly recognized this and placed her under the Imperius curse.

Her mind suddenly felt as if it were underwater. She was weightless, but more importantly her thoughts were weightless. _Open your mouth, don't you want a drink_? She heard a voice in her head, and felt her jaw open slightly. She was trying to remember exactly what had been transpiring, and what was going on before she felt this incredible freedom inside her own head. Then, as if in answer, there was a horrible, stinging taste in her mouth. She then remembered she had been put under an Unforgivable Curse, and grasped desperately at the reality ahead of her. She was trying to make her arm move, to swat away the potion bottle, but she realized too late that she was chained. Her thoughts came rushing back to her, and it was if she had been reunited with her body. There was still a terrible aftertaste in her mouth, and some running down her chin. She spat out what was still coating her mouth, and heard roaring laughter from the Death Eaters.

"Chain them together, and we'll send them back… a little care package," Voldemort said. The Death Eaters unchained Leo and dragged her to the center of the room, where she was soon joined by McGonagall, who was foaming at the mouth, and choking slightly. Trelawney, on the other hand, was unscathed. Voldemort raised his wand however, and remedied that. Trelawney let out a blood curdling scream as he began the incantation. Leo had not read of it, but there was a flash of blinding light and she turned her head away. There was a squishing sound, and Leo felt something of a strange texture against her arm. She turned and looked, mostly because Trelawney had ceased screaming. Leo however, quickly took over for her when she saw why.

"_Portus_," Voldemort said casually, while the rest laughed at Leo. She felt a tugging, whirling sensation start in her stomach. Leo realized he had turned their joining chain into a Portkey. Leo landed in a heap with the two witches, and felt some of Trelawney brush against her cheek, leaving blood behind. Leo didn't even realize she was still screaming, until she felt the need to breathe again, upon which she quickly began to cry.

It only took a matter of minutes for the others to appear at the top of the Grand Staircase. Leo had not even bothered to look around the great hall of Hogwarts. She felt a pair of cold hands on her shoulders, and heard Harry's voice. The chains were gone and Malfoy was pulling her up off the floor.

"Are you all right?" he asked frantically. Leo did not answer but simply wrapped her arms around him tightly, and continued to sob.

"Oh, God," Harry muttered, sounding both horrified and disappointed. Leo looked up from Malfoy's chest.

"Hermione, keep the girls up there," Harry called. Leo looked up to see that Anna, Cathy, Tawna and Bill were at the top of the stairs with Hermione.

"He's turned her inside out," Harry muttered to Ron.

"Damn it," Ron said. Leo looked at Trelawney's inverted body with wide, unwilling eyes, and noticed and her lungs were still struggling with breath, and her heart was beating erratically.

Leo tried to say something to draw their attention to it, but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was sick. She turned around and fell to her knees, so not to vomit on the other two bodies, or any of the three men in the Entrance Hall with her. Harry knelt next to her, quickly pulling her soot and blood filled hair away from her face until she was finished.

"_Diffindo_," Malfoy said, sounding greatly disgruntled. Instantly, the rasping sound Trelawney had been making ceased. Harry helped Leo to her feet, and held on to her arm tightly to steady her so she would not fall again. She turned her tear stained face towards her sisters, only to see that Cathy was incredibly pale, and her mouth was slightly agape. Anna had her face buried in Bill's chest, and he was trying his best to sooth her, stroking the back of her long hair.

Harry pulled out _Le Livre du Mort_ from his pocket and opened it. Leo looked down at it with him, and they both watched, as Trelawney and McGonagall were added to the Great Hall picture, between Snape and Lupin. The two exchanged sorrowful looks.

"Let's get you to the Hospital Wing," Malfoy said to Leo, coming up next to her and wrapping an arm around her waist.

"What about the bodies?" Ron asked, starting up the stairs with them.

"Leave them, we'll clean them up later tonight," Harry said, still arm in arm with Leo and helping her up the staircase. Silently, both Harry and Malfoy lifted her over one stair, and stepped over it themselves. Leo wished she could have shown the appropriate affection for the trick step, but could not at that moment. She was, however, more than eager to let Harry and Malfoy nearly carry her to the Hospital Wing, as her legs were beginning to shake more than ever. She was dreading the long walk up to the third floor, where the Hospital Wing had moved during Harry's fifth year, but apparently had moved back to the first, because it was the first set of double doors on the right.

Malfoy and Harry quickly maneuvered her to the first bed near the door, and Hermione set to work looking through Madam Pomfrey's office and stores. Ginny sat down on the bed next to Leo as Harry removed her shoes for her and tucked her into the bed. Malfoy, on the other hand, had stepped away, and was pacing on the other side of the Wing, his hair messy and sooty in his face.

"What happened to your head?" Ginny asked, pulling her wand from her robe.

"It got knocked on something when I was pulled out of the floo," Leo answered. The entire back half of her head felt larger than the rest. The weight of her hair wasn't helping the pain, either.

"Probably the mantel, then," Ginny said, pulling Leo's blood clumped hair away from the wound. Harry had since joined Hermione in the office just out of sight, while the others had all gathered around the foot of the bed. Leo closed her eyes, as Ginny's pawing was causing sharp pains in her head. She could still picture the dark, cold room easily, with McGonagall in one corner, and Trelawney in the other. She then realized something.

"There was no fireplace," Leo said.

"What?" Ginny asked, stopping for a moment to look at her.

"There was no fireplace in the room where I was tortured," Leo said. "There was a door out, and one small window at the top of a wall, but no fireplace."

"How the hell did he grab you from the Floo Network then?" Ron asked.

"He's got to be tapped into it; he's got a connection in the Ministry," Bill said.

"That's not really a surprise," Ginny said. "That just means we can't floo any longer. All of our travel is going to have to be prearranged."

"Which also goes through the Ministry first," Bill said.

"Damn it!" Ron muttered angrily under his breath. Bill sighed, and turned around, taking chairs from nearby beds and setting them up around the end of Leo's bed. Ginny had gone back to working on Leo's head, and had muttered some spell that had lessened the pain greatly. It was much easier to sit still after that. Harry and Hermione returned, with Harry carrying some clean white bandages, and Hermione holding a large vial of a purple potion, and something cloth to apply it with.

"Oh, no," Leo muttered as Hermione drew closer.

"Now really, Lenore, we must disinfect, especially after you were in the Floo Network. All that soot and ash… and hair isn't exactly clean to begin with," Hermione reasoned quickly. Leo pulled a face and looked at the bottle wearily none the less. "Oh stop whining, you know I'm right," Hermione said sternly.

"Whatever," Leo said shortly. "Just do it." Hermione dipped the applicator into the liquid, as Ginny pulled Leo's hair out of the way. Leo leaned her head forward a bit to let Hermione reach the back of her head easily.

"Cool, Leo! Your head is smoking!" Anna cried.

"And it stings too," Leo said through gritted teeth. It felt like Hydrogen Peroxide on steroids. Leo closed her eyes tightly, remembering that it was nothing in comparison to the pain she had been in only ten minutes before.

"How did you know what that was?" Harry asked, smiling slightly at this.

"Madam Pomfrey used it on you fourth year," Leo said through a clenched jaw. She didn't even want to begin to imagine how badly it would have stung if Ginny hadn't performed that pain relief charm on her.

"There we go," Hermione said. Leo raised her head and looked around the room at the attentive faces, and noticed that Malfoy had gone. She was slightly saddened by this.

"Healed as best as I can do," Ginny said, standing from the bed, and going towards a wash basin near Madam Pomfrey's office. She passed Malfoy on her way, as he came back with a small bowl and a clean set of wash rags. He set them down on the bed, and began to clean her face of soot and blood.

"I'd love to be able to take a moment out, but…" Hermione started, and conjured a blackboard.

"Bill and I will go collect McGonagall and Trelawney," Ginny said, and the two of them started out of the Hospital Wing.

Hermione waited until they were out of the room to begin again. "I think our first order of business is to pick out who the traitor is among us."

"Isn't it obvious?" Harry said quickly.

"What are you trying to imply, Potter?" Malfoy asked, turning his attention away from Leo for a moment.

"Who's been the one acting strangely lately, and it's a bit convenient that you know all of these things because you've 'time traveled'," Harry said heatedly.

"Harry," Hermione sighed.

"You saw Sirius and Snape," Leo interrupted.

"Oh come off it Potter, he wouldn't take me back if I handed you over to him personally," Malfoy said, his glare and his voice dripping with malice. He stood from the side of Leo's bed, looking more than aggravated. "And you know it."

"It's Tonks," Anna said suddenly.

"What?" They both asked, looking away from each other, though they looked like they were on their way to a good fistfight.

"Oh come on, you couldn't tell?" Anna asked. She looked around at the magical folk, but Cathy nodded in agreement.

"No, Anna, I think you're wrong this time," Hermione said. "Tonks is cool, she-"

"Exactly! She's way too cool! And besides, there are holes in her story," Anna said shifted her weight so that she was kneeling in her chair.

"What?" Ron and Hermione asked in disbelief, exchanging glances.

"How long has she been an Auror?" Anna asked.

"One year," Cathy answered. She had read book five the most. The rest of the witches and wizards in the room, though, were looking at her strangely, seeming to momentarily forget that time had passed much differently to the Muggles.

"And how long did McGonagall tell Harry it had been since they took an Auror in?" Anna asked again, explaining this slightly condescendingly, as if it were disgustingly obvious. Leo looked back and forth between Harry and Malfoy's faces.

"Three years," Cathy answered again.

"You're right!" Leo added in shock. She tried to sit up but realized quickly that it was a very bad idea. "Draco, is Tonks on speaking terms with your mother?"

"No, my Mother allied herself with-" but he stopped, a sudden look of realization on his face. "It is Nymphadora."

"She said, my first night here, that your mother told her you were on Holiday," Leo said, pounding a fist on her bed, slightly angry. She was angry at Tonks for betraying them, for Tonks being responsible for her own suffering, for the lives that Tonks sacrificed to Voldemort, but most angry that she could not accurately express her anger towards her, simply because she had limited range of motion. Malfoy sat back down on the bedside, and placed his hand on top of Leo's.

"You guys really trusted her?" Anna asked. "I never did."

"You never really knew her, Anna," Hermione said, looking like she knew it, but did not want to accept it. She took a seat at the foot of the bed, next to the blackboard.

"I read about Harry taking a bath, I think I can say I know everyone portrayed in the books," Anna reasoned, sitting back down in her chair and crossing her arms.

"You read about me taking bathes?" Harry asked, sounding slightly scandalized.

"Only the one with Moaning Myrtle," Anna shrugged.

"You took a bath with Moaning Myrtle?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows.

"No, I- Well, yes, but – What did Trelawney put in those books!" Harry said, looking towards the three sisters, his green eyes widened behind his round glasses.

"We let Tonks know about our plans for Lenore," Ginny said as she and Bill reentered the room. They all turned and looked at them, quickly forgetting Harry's bathing habits as the two bodies were brought in. "She's the only one that's not here that knew about the girls."

"We've just realized that," Ron said, watching remorsefully as the corpses were floated to the end of the Wing. Tawna stood, with a calculating look on her face, and followed as Bill and Ginny put the floating stretchers on beds, and drew curtains around them.

"What's the matter, Tawna?" Leo asked, realizing that she knew something. Tawna did not answer at first, and Hermione and Harry followed the three over to the sectioned off part of the Hospital Wing.

"It's cyanide," Tawna said. At this Malfoy leapt to his feet and moved quickly to the other side of the Wing. "He poisoned McGonagall with cyanide…" Tawna mumbled, her voice shaking slightly. She reappeared looking paler than she had before, and sat back down in her chair at the end of the bed.

Hermione came back as well, also looking quite pale, "He's got Muggle poisons… he knows about Tawna."

Harry, however, looked quite angry. "He's mocking us," he said, his voice rough. "He knows we've got Muggle chemistry, and he wanted us to know that he has it too, damn it." The pit fell out of Leo's stomach as a wave of helplessness flooded over her.

"I'm useless?" Tawna asked, sounding disappointed.

"Tonks must have told him what we were going to use your knowledge for," Malfoy said. Leo was still feeling an empty, hollow space deep in her chest from their impending loss. She felt a wave of cold run over her, and she shivered violently. But it didn't stop. She continued to shake slightly, as if her blood sugar was running low or she was desperately ill.

Harry was watching her carefully now, though his eyes and body language still suggested a great deal of anger, there looked to be a bit of concern as well. "What all did he do to you Lenore?" he asked.

"Just the fanfic standard, you know… Joss Whedon banter and a few well placed Cruciatus Curses," Leo shrugged, trying desperately to lighten the mood. Though she knew it was pointless, it was her only coping mechanism. It seemed to not be amusing to anyone else, except Cathy, who was wearing the tiniest smirk. Leo felt another wave of shaking and lightheadedness, and clenched her fists to keep her arms still.

"Lenore, are you sure you're all right?" Hermione asked, her eyes wide with concern. The rest of the room had gone silent now as they all watched her.

"I'm still a little shaky, but I think it's just because of Crucio." She answered, feeling as if she were trying to suddenly convince herself more than the others. She muttered, "That was terrible." Malfoy was still watching intently from a distance, his arms folded over his chest.

"You just look awfully pale, is all," Ron added. At this Malfoy took a sudden step forward, his expression worried.

"He didn't make you drink anything, did he?" his voice was suddenly panicked.

Leo looked up at met his eyes. She could feel the rest of them watching her, but she dared not look away from Malfoy in that moment. His face conveyed more than just concern, but fear. She nodded solemnly.

Malfoy swore, and turned and kicked over a bedpan. Hermione opened her mouth to scold him, but he turned around, "What color was it?"

Leo was shocked to hear him ask such a question, as the color had been what struck her most about the potion. And though she was under the Imperius Curse at the time of consumption, she had expected it to taste horrible. The after taste anyway. But the hue had surprised her.

"It was strange… a kind of glowing… black," Leo answered.

Hermione gasped and covered her mouth, and Ginny shook her head. Malfoy closed his eyes, breathing shallowly, as if trying to stuff down emotion.

"What?" Anna asked frantically. "What does that mean, what was it?" She sounded as frightened as Leo felt. None of the four Muggles knew what it was.

Malfoy cleared his throat before answering. "It was the Cunctor Poison."

"Poison?" Leo asked. Cathy had gone nearly as pale as Leo had, and looked to be on the verge of tears. Tawna, however, was crying already.

"It's one of the most advanced potions anyone can make. Twice as difficult to produce as a Wolfsbane Potion," Hermione explained, looking as though she too might cry.

Leo was trying quickly to wrap her mind around the fact that she had been force fed a poison. "Poison? If it was a poison, why am I not dead?"

"Cunctor is Latin," Tawna choked down her tears, but didn't bother to try and hide them. "It means slow moving, to delay something - make it linger."

Leo turned a terrified glance towards Malfoy. He seemed to be taken aback by the need in her expression, but understood immediately that she was looking for confirmation. He nodded his head, and Leo suddenly felt as though she could not breathe. She balled the sheet in her fists once again, and stared at a point on her knees.

"I don't know where on Earth he got it," Harry muttered.

"Snape," Draco said. "Though he made it with the intention of slipping it to someone else, he never got the chance. It was in his store cupboard when I took over the position. I dare say, an Auror would be able to get into the school nowadays without second thought. I just wasn't guarding my stores well enough," he sounded as though he was angry with himself. "I didn't even think to get rid of it this time."

"What's it-" Leo paused, licking her lips, and trying to ask the question without bursting into tears. "What's it going to do to me?"

Everyone glanced around, then Ginny came and sat on the edge of her bed. She took her hand silently, and looked into her eyes for a moment before she spoke. "First this, the shaking, like you've got the flu. Then you'll feel quite feverish, you're joints will ache, and you won't be able to move very much. After that you're muscles will become tense, and that's when you're closer to the end. You'll begin to have hallucinations, a few hours before you go," she explained.

"A few hours?" Leo asked. "How long does it take?"

"Four or five days," Malfoy said. He looked just as shaken as Leo's sisters. Leo turned to Ginny, who was still looking at her intently. It was plain that the war had hardened her, that her loss had changed her. But Leo could still see a flicker of compassion in her eyes, she was not as stone like as Leo had thought her to be.

Ginny squeezed Leo's hand, "You won't have to live through this. They will go back, and everything will change. The poison won't have time to take its full effect, I promise you." The rest of the room was quiet. Leo realized that she would not have to feel what it was like to die, but that she would not even remember this at all, and that terrified her more.

She felt Anna's small hands wrap around her shoulders, as she climbed onto the bed with her. Anna laid her head on her shoulder and whispered, "Do you remember what Sirius said to the Weasleys that Christmas when their dad was attacked?"

"There are some things worth dying for," Leo answered softly. She closed her eyes, trying to keep her tears down, but she could feel the warm salt spill down her cheek.

Ginny's grip on her hand tightened, and Anna kissed her cheek. Cathy and Tawna sat on the bed now as well, each trying to comfort Leo in some way, though the small bed was now impossibly crowded.

There was a long moment of silence, before it was broken by the slight creaking of the hinges to the Hospital Wing door. They all turned and looked to see Kingsley enter the room. He looked quite concerned, "I apologize for my tardiness," he said, then noisily tripped on the bedpan Malfoy had kicked a moment earlier. It clanged across the room and under another one of the infirmary beds.

Anna sat up, releasing her grip on Leo. "Hello Minister," she said, her eyes narrowed slightly.

"Good Evening. Hannah, right?" he asked, though his face looked worn and grave.

"Sprite to you," Anna spat. "That's Tonks!"

Without a moment of pause or question, Ron raised his wand and yelled "_Stupefy_!" With only a tiny moment of surprise on his face, Kingsley fell to the floor. Hermione stepped forward and raising her wand, used an incantation the Muggles had never read of in the books. Kingsley's limp body slowly began to morph, changing shape and looking like a moving mass of liquid, until finally, there was Tonks, with a slightly rounder nose than usual and mouse brown hair. Hermione made a disgruntled noise and rubbed her temples.

"What should we do with her?" Ron asked, turning and looking at Harry.

He shrugged. "Stick her in the broom closet until we figure that out." Ginny smiled at this, and stood from Leo's bed to help Ron move her into the supply closet. Bill too rose from his chair and dug around in Tonks' robes, until he pulled out a wand and put it into the back of his waistband.

"Good way to lose a buttock," Harry commented under his breath. Bill pulled a face and sat back down.

"Enough about Bill's bum, we need to get back to work," Hermione said, and with a wave of her wand, conjured another infamous chalk board. But this time, instead of being blank, she had conjured the board they had been using at Finney Park.

"Even if it is a rather nice, leather clad arse?" Anna asked, with a wicked grin on her face. They all looked a bit surprised, except for Leo and Bill, who laughed knowingly and nervously, respectfully. Hermione just shook her head, though Harry seemed to laugh a bit as well. Leo was silently grateful that they had not all entirely lost their senses of humor, especially in this quite dire situation.

"All right, Malfoy, I think we need to know what's gone wrong this time as well," Hermione said, looking at the relatively empty half of the board.

He sighed heavily, still looking very agitated and worried. "Let's see… the Longbottoms, Tonks is a new development… but looking back on the others… she's been on his side for a bit of time now. Getting the other sisters was something that went right, I think."

"Shouldn't we be focusing on what we need to go back and fix? We're losing time here," Cathy said impatiently. She was sitting very rigidly on the edge of Leo's bed, looking quite protective of her.

Hermione nodded reluctantly in agreement. "Right…. We've figured out what the first moment was… or rather, what we think is the first moment. Can you think of any others?" she asked, turning towards the bed.

The three sisters were all quiet in thought for a moment, before slowly answering. "No, that's really the first time something felt… _wrong_."

"So we're starting with Snape?" Anna asked. "Outting Lupin."

"Right," Cathy nodded.

"Are you sure that's the first?" She asked.

"There were unfortunate, and upsetting moments, but nothing quite so gut wrenchingly wrong," Leo said. They looked at her as though she shouldn't be speaking; preserving her energy in some way.

"Cedric," Cathy said. "That was the next one."

"No…." Leo reasoned. "Again – it sucked – but it needed to happen, so that we could see how ruthless Voldemort was."

"This isn't Literature anymore, Leo," Tawna said sternly. Her cheeks were still damp with tears. Leo looked away from her angry black eyes.

"I know," was all she said.

"The persisting problem is still how," Bill said. "I don't mean to quash spirits, but it doesn't matter if we figure out what happened if we can't do anything about it."

Hermione turned and looked at Bill, looking slightly annoyed, but not necessarily with him, but more likely with the state of affairs. "We're going to go back and make sure that these things don't happen."

"How, Hermione?" Bill asked, his voice raising slightly. "If we're talking major time travel here – thirteen years – the circumstances that got you here will cease to exist, and then so will you." He argued heatedly.

"Bill's right, it can't be up to us to do it, we need to tell someone presently back there," Harry said, still looking very contemplative.

"That would be Dumbledore of course," Ron said, shrugging. "We go back and tell him what's happened. We can let him know about it all, and what to do, or not do, so we don't end up back here. Then, if we stop existing, at least the problem will have been fixed."

"But look at these things, Ron!" Hermione said, tapping the board with her wand. "A lot of this happens to Harry when Dumbledore's not around. We can't expect him to meddle so much… to make Harry open his Christmas gift fifth year… to – to make sure that Harry gets proper Occlumency lessons! That's far too much to ask of him."

"Too much?" Ginny's voice was raised. "Too much to ask that he make sure our families aren't murdered? That our homes aren't burned to the ground and our friends are tortured to death or insanity?"

"I didn't mean that, Gin," Hermione said, lessening her tone now. Ginny crossed her arms stubbornly, but said nothing else.

"Anna... Trelawney mentioned Anna in the dungeon just before…." Leo trailed off into silence. However, her quiet voice had commanded the rapt attention of the room.

"What are you getting at?" Malfoy asked, taking a step closer.

"Send Anna back… to, I don't know, watch and make sure," Leo suggested, now becoming excited with the idea.

"What, as a student?" Bill asked.

"Perfect! Send her back in time, have her be a student. She can keep an eye on Harry when Dumbledore can't, and inform him as well. It's perfect," Leo said.

"Not exactly…" Ron said. "She's a Muggle… I think they'll notice when she can't do any of her work."

"Or opens her mouth," Malfoy added. "She's American."

"That's nothing, I can fake an accent," Anna said confidently.

"Really?" Malfoy asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"Really? Would you rather go back again?" Anna asked, faking Malfoy's accent perfectly. "I can be some posh witch… and I'm positive they won't notice my lack of magic. I can do the rest of the work and just be very very good with reports." Leo and Cathy laughed, and Malfoy, to his dismay, cracked a bit of a smile.

"I still don't know if that's the best idea…." Ginny said.

"It's the only one we've got," Harry said.

"Then let's do it, let's get back there," Hermione said.

"Wait, you're forgetting again," Bill said.

"Forgetting what?" Ron asked impatiently.

"Time theory," Tawna started. "If Anna, this Anna right here, goes back from this point in time, she will cease to exist after she changes the first thing. The situation that got her here will no longer be, and therefore her as well."

"You've got to go back to before we were intercepted into the Potterverse," Leo said. Hermione looked a little baffled by the terminology.

"How are we going to believe it, though?" Cathy asked.

"Why don't we write a letter to ourselves, explaining it, and what's happened," Leo suggested. "We'll recognize our own handwriting, so we'll know it was us."

"That's brilliant," Ron said. "I think it will work."

"So do I," Harry said. "But who's going to go back in a time a few days and fetch you?" Hermione looked between him and Ron.

"Why don't the three of us go? I'm sure they'd really believe it if we showed up," Hermione said.

"It's true, we would," Anna said. She sounded calm, but Leo could see the excitement mounting behind her eyes at the prospect of being a Hogwarts student. "And then I'd be old enough for you," Anna turned and smiled at Bill.

"What?" he asked, seemingly clueless.

"Oh come on, Bill, aside from the Lolita under tones, there's chemistry here," Anna said with a wicked grin.

He was quiet for a moment, with his jaw slightly slack, "Are you sure you're only twelve?" he asked. Anna smiled even larger.

"Not for long," she winked at him.

There was suddenly a deafening crash from outside the window that made everyone flinch in surprise, and the Wizards all rushed to look out. Leo would have as well, but her legs were quaking terribly. "Oh shit," Harry said, "He's here."

"We've got to go now…" Hermione said, and with a wave of her wand she conjured a roll of parchment and ink with a quill.

"How do you keep doing that?" Cathy asked in amazement. "Aren't you getting tired or something, pulling these things out of the air?"

Hermione looked at her quizzically for a moment. "I'm not just creating them… that is exhausting. What I'm doing is pulling objects from a specific location."

"Oh," Cathy said in a small voice. Leo was already feverishly writing.

"You three go," Ginny said, looking at Harry, Ron and Hermione. "Bill and Malfoy and I will go keep them off as long as we can." She looked fierce, but her eyes looked saddened. Harry's expression became distressed, but he quickly nodded, and pulled her into a kiss and a tight embrace.

"Everything will be okay," she said into his ear. He nodded and kissed her again, before she and Bill started for the door at a jog. Malfoy, however, stayed behind. Harry looked at him expectantly.

"Aren't you going to go fight alongside my _wife_?" he asked, his voice starting to heat. He motioned towards the door, urging him to go.

"And leave mine here defenseless?" he shouted back, indicating Leo. Harry looked at her for a moment, then back to Malfoy as if he'd love to disagree with him. "Look Potter, in another ten minutes, you'll be standing in an American Muggle home, in the middle of the night, taking a twelve year old back to before she was born to save your wife. None of us are going to live through the night, except you, because – like always – you're going to go and save the day." Leo could tell if it was an embittered rant or a pep speech, or perhaps a mixture of both, but either way it seemed to be the right thing to say to Harry then.

"Are we ready?" he asked.

"Almost finished," Leo said, writing rapidly and no doubt messily, to copy the chalkboard, on the scroll in her lap. She signed it with a flourishing motion, then passed the quill to her sisters and Tawna. The three signed, then passed it to Hermione's eagerly awaiting hand.

"Let's go," she said, and the glorious three ran for the door and out of sight. There was a long moment of silence, and the four Muggles exchanged wary looks. Malfoy sighed heavily and sat on the edge of the bed. Anna began to speak, but stopped short when she heard the noises from outside the castle. There were raised voices, and periodic explosions. They all looked frightened, seeing the different colored lights shining up through the windows. Cathy and Tawna grabbed hands, holding tightly to each other. Leo closed her eyes, and Anna laid her head on Leo's shoulder. Malfoy grabbed Leo's hand as well, and they all listened silently to the noises of the final battle at Hogwarts. There was the sound of another terrible explosion, and the outcry of a male voice. Leo held Anna tightly with her free hand as she buried her face in her neck, beginning to cry quietly. Cathy and Malfoy exchanged resigned looks, as all five realized that the valiant Ginny Potter had just met her end.

There was a series of flashing lights, then it all suddenly ceased. The silence rang through the Hospital Wing, and the entire castle seemed to be still.

"What is that?" Cathy asked, and they looked towards the window, seeing a ball of light growing closer. It met bay of windows at the end of the Hospital Wing, and the windows exploded. They all tried desperately to shield themselves from the glass, covering their faces with their arms and turning away. Malfoy, however, had pulled his wand just in time to protect them.

"Get up! Get up now!" he commanded, pulling Anna to her feet, then going for Leo. Wind whipped through the now gaping hole in the side of the castle. There was what felt like an audible growl from beneath them, as if the school were angry. Malfoy wrapped an arm around Leo's waist, and helped her from the infirmary. She was surprised at how terribly her legs were shaking as they ran for the door.

There was a pounding noise ahead of them, and Tonks burst from the supply closet, sending wood scattering out. Anna screamed, and she, Cathy and Tawna flung themselves against the opposite wall. Her right arm was extremely muscular, and had split the fabric of her sleeve. There was a popping noise, and her arm was back to normal, though she was still clutching her hand in a fist. She looked around quickly, and patted down her robe pockets to no avail.

She looked up desperately at Malfoy, "It's only a matter of time now, cousin." Malfoy had stopped, however, and was holding Leo up with one arm, and his wand in the other hand. They were all motionless for a moment, while Tonks and Malfoy stared each other down.

Malfoy raised his wand, pointing it directly at the center of Tonks's chest. "Look away girls," he said, then hastily added, "_Avada Kedavra_!" The Muggles didn't need to be told twice, and they all turned their eyes away. They heard her body hit the ground, and the castle started to shake again.

"Come on," Malfoy said, and they all ran out into the hall.

"Where are we going?" Cathy asked, looking desperately to both sides.

"This way," he said, leading them all towards a large door a few yards away from the Hospital Wing. He opened the door, and helped Leo through, passing her to Tawna and Cathy. "Stay in here, I'll be back soon," he said, and ran down the hall.

"Over here Anna, I want you guys to stay together," Leo said, trying to take a step on her own, and to her great surprise was able to manage it. Not easily, but manageable. "Get under the desk, I want you to hide under that big desk." There was a large, teacher's desk at the head of the class, and there were small desks and chairs pushed up against the walls.

"Cathy, you too," Leo ordered, pointing to the desk.

"No, Leo, I-" she began to protest.

"Just do it!" Leo said, pointing to the desk again. Cathy was just climbing under, when the door burst open again. The four girls all screamed, and looked towards the door.

"It's me, it's me – keep it down," Malfoy said, closing and locking the door with an incantation that none of them had read about before. He crossed the room quickly to the girls, encouraging them to hide. Once Cathy, Anna and Tawna were secure under the desk, Malfoy grabbed Leo's hand and led her towards the corner of the room, where there was another door. There was a terrible crashing sound, and Leo realized that it was the two doors in the Entrance Hall, slamming to the floor.

The floor was beginning to quake terribly now, and Leo's body was beginning to shake so violently that her legs were about to go out from under her. Malfoy seemed to realize this, and wrapped an arm around her waist. The ground gave a strong lurch, and they stumbled into the wall. A pocket of dust fell from above them, causing Leo to take a sudden breath inward, and close her eyes. She felt Malfoy's fingertips lightly brush her eye lids, clearing the dust away. He then muttered a spell she had never read of, and she felt the rest of the dust fall from her face.

Leo opened her eyes, to find that Malfoy was looking at her more intently, with more compassion and emotion that he had ever shown before. She also realized that their faces happened to be the closest they had ever been.

"It should be over soon," he whispered, though it seemed like he was trying to comfort himself as much as Leo.

"Do you still have my wedding ring in your pocket?" Leo asked softly. Malfoy nodded, and reached his free hand into the pockets of his robes, pulling out the silver, jeweled ring. Leo lifted her hand, letting him slide the ring onto her finger.

"Draco-" she said softly, about to ask for what he gave her anyway. He leaned his face closer to hers, sealing the space between them until their lips met.

THE END!

(more to come, you don't really think I'd leave it like this without an epilogue, do you?)


	5. Epilogue

* * *

**Destiny Denied  
Epilogue  
by Merox**

* * *

"So how many times have you read book five, now, Cathy?" Lenore asked. Her strawberry blonde pigtailed little sister looked up over the top of her large blue and silver book. She looked back down to her pages and read a few more lines before placing a ribbon topped bookmark and replying.

"Eight." She said simply, "I had to take a break from fan fiction," and her green eyes went back to roaming the pages. Her eyes had been Cathy's favorite feature, especially after becoming a Harry Potter fan. Granted, that had been many years ago, but the initial charm and excitement that inevitably leads to obsession had not worn off in those long seven years. It had been one year, two months since Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had been released.

It had been five books, seven years and many pairs of reading glasses since the Lector sisters had discovered the magical world of Harry Potter, and it had been since then that they had been trying to live in it. They all lay in their beds at night, secretly wishing to do exactly that.

The Lector family cat wandered into the doorway of Cathy's room, where Leo was leaning in the door frame. He mewed and wound his black body in and around Leo's feet, before she finally gave in and scooped him into her arms.

"That's our cue," Leo smiled, talking mostly to Harry. "Night Cathy, say goodnight, Harry." Leo waved the paw of the aptly named cat at her younger sister, just as she heard a few 'pops', and two male voices in the hall.

"Goodnight," Harry Potter said. It was a good thing that the two Lector sisters had been silenced, because they would have screamed, mostly out of surprise, and woken the entire house. Leo's arms went slack, and she inadvertently dropped Harry the cat, who went bolting towards Annabelle's bedroom. Cathy had dropped her book and stood, walking towards the door slowly and lethargically, as if she had been zombified instead of silenced. Not that anyone really knew what a zombie moved like.

"Sorry to startle you," the bushy haired brunette in the center said. The Muggles knew her as Hermione Granger. "We can unsilence you if you promise not to scream. We won't hurt you." The two sisters replied with silence, and wide eyes and mouths. Ron and Harry exchanged looks, and there was a long moment before the girls were given back their voices. However, it was pointless, as they simply continued to stare, still quiet.

"Where's Annabelle?" Hermione asked. Cathy and Leo looked at them for a bit longer, but Leo seemed to be the first to snap out of her shock. She glanced at Cathy quizzically before turning back to Hermione.

"She's asleep… I can go get her," Leo said. Hermione nodded, and smiled a bit. However, not being accustomed to seeing fictional characters appear in their hallway, both Lector girls remained motionless.

An awkward moment of silence passed.

"Oh, do you mean now?" Leo asked. Hermione nodded again, needless to say a bit more impatient, but Ron had turned his head to the side to disguise his laughter. Leo looked at them for a bit longer, before a strange feeling of familiarity started to creep over the back of her brain. She turned and made her way quickly down the darkened hall. Annabelle was sleeping restlessly, and Harry had curled up on the pillow next to her.

"Anna, wake up," Leo said, shaking her shoulders.

"What time is it?" Anna asked, rolling her head to the side to see her neon green digital numbers.

"It doesn't matter, get up, Harry Potter is here and he's asking for you," Leo said, tugging on her arms.

"That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard. We really need to get lives, you know," she said, trying to pull her covers over her. Leo however, grabbed them and pulled them off her swiftly.

"Get up now, I'm not kidding!" Leo demanded.

"Whatever," Anna yawned, and climbed out of bed, following Leo into the hall sleepily. She was rubbing her eyes as she entered the hallway, but stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the three adult figures there.

"Holy crap!" she cried. "You weren't joking…"

"Hello Annabelle," Hermione said. They all three looked a little ruffled and worn. Hermione was holding a rolled up piece of parchment in her left hand, and her wand in her right. "I think it would be good if we spoke with your parents as well as the three of you."

Again, the three sisters remained motionless. Hermione grinned awkwardly at them, hoping this would steer them to action. It did not. Ron began to chuckle and Hermione elbowed him. She rolled her eyes.

"Where is your parents' room?" she asked. The three sisters pointed behind themselves soundlessly. Hermione started walking that way, leaving the other five to follow. They all caught up quickly.

"So, wait… why are you here?" Anna asked.

"We can explain it in a moment," Hermione said, opening the Master Bedroom door. Anna and Cathy pushed past Hermione and ran to their parents' bed, and began to wake them up. Leo, however, was standing in the doorway, her head aching slightly with a severe case of déjà vu. She crossed her arms, and leaned against the doorway.

Mr. and Mrs. Lector sat up in bed, observing the scene carefully. Mr. Lector reached over and found his glasses on the bedside table. He slid them on hastily while Mrs. Lector stared slightly open-mouthed. Cathy reached past her mother and turned on her lamp.

"There's quite a bit of explaining to do, but I'd rather like to have Lenore do it," Hermione said, turning and handing the parchment to Leo. She looked the most confused of all of them. She unrolled the paper, and furrowed her eyebrows when she saw the hand writing.

"I wrote this?" she asked.

"Yes, about ten minutes ago to us, but next week in your future," Harry said. Leo looked up at him. His explanation wasn't helping her confusion at all.

"Time travel?" Cathy asked.

"Don't keep us waiting, Leo, read it," her father said.

Leo looked down at it for a moment and clearing her throat.

Dearest Us,Aug. 23, 2004

It's going to seem really weird when Harry, Ron, and Hermione show up at our house, but take time and listen to them. They need our help. Below is a list of what went wrong in the books, (which if you haven't figured out yet, are not fiction) and ultimately threw off their destiny. I can't explain too much, self, as the school is being attacked right now, and we're running out of time. Voldemort is scary. And unfortunately we know from experience. Malfoy is on the good side now (long story) and he's been going back in time, a lot, to try and fix this. They asked us to help them because we were the biggest nerds they could find. And hey, it worked. What we need to do is send LeeLee back in time as a student, so that she can keep an eye on everything below. Point is, we can only go back one more time, so if Anna doesn't go, it's the end of the wizarding world. Oh, and there won't be any more books, because Rowling Trelawney DEAD. So Anna's gotta go be a hero. I wish I could elaborate more, but we're running out of _time_. You'll get to be a witch, Anna, GO!

"Then we signed below," Leo said after she had finished reading. "Even Tawna…" Leo turned and looked at the three wizards, and they nodded.

"Let me see," Mrs. Lector began. "Your fate…."

"Broke, essentially," Hermione sad.

"And only my daughter can fix it?" she asked. They were all quiet for a moment.

"That's the only solution we could come to," Harry finally said. Mrs. Lector nodded. She looked very thoughtful for a long quiet moment, then began to shake her head.

"Momma, I need to go," Anna said, crawling onto her bed.

"I know sweetie, but I'm not going to-" she broke off as a stream of tears started down her cheeks.

"Mom," Leo started.

"Anna can go," Mr. Lector said. "It's just… since she'll be going back in time, we won't get to see her grow." Harry looked suddenly guilt ridden, as if he had just realized this. He shook his head too.

"I'm so sorry, I know what it is to lose a child… but if you don't lose yours for a few years, we will all lose ours forever," Harry said. Mrs. Lector wrapped her arms around Anna, who had crawled into her lap. She kissed her forehead and held her close for a long time.

"Leo, Cathy, why don't you go get your sister's things for her?" Mrs. Lector asked. Hermione's posture relaxed a bit as she sighed with relief.

"Thank you so much," Harry said, and Ron and Hermione echoed their appreciation.

Leo and Cathy arrived with Anna's favorite pillow, books and a few other tokens, as well as a few outfits of clothing. Meanwhile, Anna had said her goodbyes to her parents. She crawled off her parents' bed, and made her way to her older two sisters. While hugging Leo, she turned suddenly to her parents.

"What are we going to tell the boys?" she asked desperately. Mr. Lector sighed, and looked quite thoughtful.

"Well, we'll tell them the truth. That you went to Hogwarts to go to school. It will have to stay a secret within the family of course, as if you are a Muggleborn," he said. Anna smiled, and turned to Cathy. She hugged her tightly around the waist, before the three Lector sisters shared their final group hug.

"How far back am I going?" Anna asked.

"To 1991," Harry answered. Anna's eyes widened.

"That's when I was born!" she said. "I'll be doubling my age… I'll be twenty four when I come back here." She had a far off look in her eyes for a moment, looking scared. But then her expression suddenly broke into a large smile. "Cool!"

"Let's get going before we all start crying like Momma," Anna said, smiling widely at her mother. Her mother smiled back, but then started to cry harder. Anna dropped the bag her sisters had pack for her, and ran back to her parents one more time, for one last hug and kiss.

"It's okay Mom, I'll come back as soon as I can, you'll see me soon," she said.

"I know, I'm crying for you sweetie," her mother answered. For the first time, Anna looked glum. She took a very deep breath, then sat up, kissed her mother on the cheek, and joined the three wizards in the doorway. She stood silently looking at her family, then smiled widely.

"Portkey, Hermione?" Harry said. Hermione nodded.

"Right, thank you," she said, pulling her wand from her robe. She pointed it at Anna's suitcase, and in another moment, they had whirled away.

For the next few days the remaining sisters poured over their Harry Potter books, only stopping to eat and visit the restroom. It wasn't until the third book that they noticed any differences. They were hoping to see Anna's name in the sorting during the first book, but with no luck. The changes were easy for them to recognize, and the sisters used their sustenance breaks to discuss the strange dreams they had been having, of the three sisters and their friend Tawna running around Grimmauld Place… which for some reason they kept wanting to call something else entirely.

They were each reading through their own copies of Order of the Phoenix; Leo with her British edition and Cathy with her American, when she reached the first meeting of Dumbledore's Army at the Hogshead.

"She's in the DA!" she shouted, jumping from her bed. Leo was a few chapters behind, as she had stopped to get them a pizza.

"What?" Leo asked, letting her eyes leave her own book and look over at Cathy's as she held it out for her.

"Right there, sitting between Michael Corner and Zacharias Smith!" Cathy said.

"Do you think she was sorted into Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, then?" Leo asked.

Cathy made a disgruntled noise, "I hate her."

"Jealous, much?" Leo chuckled, looking back to the page.

"Heh, you can tell?" Cathy smirked. They were both quiet for a while before she spoke again. "How do you think she's holding up?"

"I managed," came an adult voice from Cathy's doorway.

Leo and Cathy both stood from their chairs, letting their books fall to the floor. They were not as stunned as they had been when Harry, Ron and Hermione had shown up only a few nights previously. They both ran to their now adult sister and embraced her tightly. She embraced them back, and the three held each other for a long moment.

"You look beautiful," Leo said once the three finally broke apart.

"Thanks," she replied humbly. Her once waist length hair was now trimmed above her shoulders, and had only darkened slightly from its corn husk hue. She had grown a bit as well, though she was still the shortest of the Lector girls; a good few inches shorter than Leo.

"You've got an accent," Cathy observed.

"Yeah, about two years in I realized I wasn't faking it anymore," Anna chuckled.

"What did you do to your hair?" Leo asked sadly, holding the ends of it in her hand.

"Don't you like it?" Anna laughed again, "Have to keep it short with two year olds running about."

"What?" Leo exclaimed.

"You have kids?" Cathy asked simultaneously. Anna was all smiles again, and she raised her left hand, wiggling her fingers and showing off a wedding band.

"I graduated seven years ago, what did you expect?" she laughed. "You'll meet him in good time, hopefully within the next few hours."

"Well who is it?" Cathy demanded.

"You can't just keep us hanging, come on, Lee Lee, spill!" Leo demanded.

Anna was smiling broadly again. It seemed she was unable to stop. "I've been gone for thirteen years and you want to know about my husband." She joked. "I've come to kidnap the two of you, I figure I can con you two into babysitting while Bill and I have a night off."

"Bill Weasley?" her sisters echoed in unison. She laughed outright this time.

"Of course, who else?" Anna giggled. She smiled at her two older, now younger, sisters, before pulling them into another long embrace.

"Here," she started, procuring two vials from within her robes. "Take these, get some rest, you're both coming with me when you wake up."

"You made these?" Cathy asked, holding hers up towards the light to look through it, half awed and half cautious.

"Oh no, I'm shite with potions, I borrowed those from a friend. One, I might mention, who is very anxious to meet you," Anna said, nudging Leo in the ribs. She looked quite puzzled as to whom Anna was implying.

"If we're sleeping, what are you going to do?" Leo asked.

"Catch up with Mum and Dad, of course," Anna scoffed, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. "Go! Get some rest, I'm sure you two have been reading this whole time," she smiled wickedly at them.

"Besides," her hands dove back into her pockets. "We're going to France tomorrow for the final." She brandished a set of three paper tickets, a light blue with gold embossing on them. The wording was in French, but Leo could not read it, as Anna was waving them quickly, and had begun to squeal and bounce. This excitement caused a deep purple, elliptical amulet to release itself from her robes.

"What are-" Cathy trailed off before she could finish her question.

"Finals?" Leo asked simultaneously. The Muggle sisters seemed to realize what she was speaking of, and gasped, then shortly joined in the bouncing and squealing.

"Who is it, who's playing?" Leo asked.

"Does it matter?" Cathy asked, easily the most excited either sister had ever seen her.

"It's us against Poland, it'll be a ripping match," Anna smiled, and Dumbledore's arranged a box for the Order. Said he wanted to introduce you two in a recreational environment."

"Dumbledore?" Leo asked, "Why would he want to introduce us to the Order?"

"Apparently, we were a great deal of help," she said. "Though none of us can remember it," she added hastily.

"Who cares? We're going to see Quidditch!" Cathy announced, though her bouncing had not yet ceased.

"And that is why you need your sleep!" Anna said, ushering Leo towards the door, and pointing Cathy in the direction of her bed.

"Can we see your wand?" she asked excitedly.

"Go to sleep," Anna pointed to the vial. "I'm older now, so you have to listen to me." Cathy stuck her tongue out, but moved towards her bed nonetheless.

Once out in the hall, Leo grabbed Anna in another tight hug. "I can't believe that you've grown up."

"I can't believe you're still taller than me," Anna grumbled, but hugged her sister affectionately regardless. "But really, Leo, go get some sleep. You've got a taxing day tomorrow, and I don't want you to have dark circles under your eyes when you meet him. He's very excited to finally meet you."

Leo had begun to ask who Anna was talking about, but she had clamped a hand over Leo's mouth and pointed in the direction of the stairs to Leo's attic bedroom. "Sleep. Love you. Go," she commanded. Leo nodded, and with another quick hug, started up to bed. She doubted she would be able to actually sleep, knowing that in only a few hours, she would finally be entering the Wizarding World.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am writing a sequel to this; an AU showing what would have happened to the Potterverse once the Lector sisters had changed everything. (11-29-06) I don't want to post any of it until I have the majority of it done, just so that I don't end up with a year update time, like I did with this one. I still feel terrible about that. Anyway, the sequeal is on it's way. I'd love to say sometime later this winter, but realistically, I know it will be summertime. Thanks, Aiden.**


End file.
